| Entropic Communications: Share Ware |
| Media-Entertainment | |||
| Written by John Zorabedian | |||
| Sunday, 01 June 2008 | |||
 CEO Patrick Henry leads this innovative chip manufacturer in developing new markets in networked home entertainment.
Entropic’s chips make connected home entertainment possible by linking television sets with digital devices such as PCs and gaming consoles on the same platform, creating a whole-home entertainment network. With Entropic’s technology, consumers are able to access the programs stored on their digital video recorder (DVR) from any TV in any room in the home. Cable and satellite TV providers are using Entropic’s technology to roll out new product offerings in the US pay-TV market, including Verizon’s FiOS fiber-optic-to-the-home Internet and digital TV package.  Patrick Henry, CEO Patrick Henry, chairman and CEO of Entropic, said the company’s focus is on producing the enabling technologies for digital home entertainment networking and changing the way content is delivered into and shared throughout the home. Now that providers such as Verizon and Dish Network are deploying Entropic’s technologies in their service offerings, the company’s growth is expected to rapidly accelerate over the next few years. “The success of our initial deployments is a strong early indicator that there is widespread interest in our technology from a deployment standpoint with other major operators,” Henry said. “Today, more than 85% of DVRs come from service providers, so we expect that service providers will dominate the multi-room DVR market as well. There’s solid penetration of DVRs already in US homes, and the market is ripe for deployment of this technology.” The vast majority of people in the US—about 95% of TV homes—pay for TV service. And many US homes already have adopted home networking for data with wireless area networks; however, wireless area networks are not well suited for transmitting large quantities of video from room to room. The Entropic technology allows cable and satellite providers to use the existing coaxial cables to transmit digital video seamlessly around the home between TV sets. “Content is now easy to store and easy to share,” Henry said. “The storage piece is happening in tens of millions of homes with DVRs, but the sharing piece is just starting to happen. The big near-term opportunity is the US, but it’s a global market in the future.” Chips off the block The company’s founding CEO, Itzhak Gurantz, was part of the technical team that worked for Linkabit in the 1980s before launching several different communications technology companies, including Qualcomm and ComStream. In the past year, Entropic has reassembled much of that technical talent, merging with RF Magic and acquiring Vativ Technologies and Arabella Software, an Israeli network processing company. Gurantz, who now serves as the company’s chief technology officer, founded Entropic in 2001 with the idea of providing the technologies that would make home video sharing possible. To achieve this mission, Gurantz had to assemble the right technical team. Gurantz’s team was right under his nose in the booming San Diego communications technology sector, including much of the talent he worked with at ComStream, the company he founded after leaving Linkabit. One of Entropic’s cofounders, Anton Monk, designed several Conexant product lines, including cable modems and fixed wireless access, and was involved in the development of cable and satellite products at ComStream. With the acquisition of Arabella Software and the hiring of its founder, Jonathan Masel, as head of Entropic Israel, Entropic brought additional software capabilities to the table. Through strategic acquisitions and organic growth, Entropic will continue to break into new connected-home entertainment markets. “As a semiconductor company, we need to have a story around how we can integrate additional functionality over time, and we need to have enough critical mass of different products in our portfolio to sell to the customers we service,” Henry said. Entropic has spectacular organic growth prospects because its current markets are growing rapidly. Under Henry’s leadership, the company is actively looking at strategic M&A. “We’re continuing to grow through adjacent market opportunities and technology acquisitions, all focused in the connected home entertainment space,” he said. After buying RF Magic, Entropic united its San Diego based technology teams under one roof, at a refurbished corporate headquarters in Sorrento Mesa, the high tech area of San Diego. The building was formerly the headquarters of chip manufacturer AMCC, which relocated to Silicon Valley. “We did quite a bit of hiring last year, and both facilities were bursting at the seams,” Henry said. “The caliber of our people is what makes us the innovator and market leader in the markets we serve. Our very talented tech and engineering teams are at the heart of Entropic.” |
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© 2008 American Executive - RedCoat Publishing. All rights reserved.
American Executive is a RedCoat Publishing publication.
American Executive is a RedCoat Publishing publication.
