Comcast Cable has hired a former Microsoft executive to become head of its product development department as the cable TV provider attempts to make great strides in the TV platform business.
Chris Satchell is joining Comcast as executive vice president and chief product officer to oversee Comcast's product teams spread out across Silicon Valley, Denver and Philadelphia. Satchell will be in charge of developing new consumer products and improving Comcast's existing products, such as its X1 TV platform, cloud DVR and related mobile apps.
Taking over the role from Charlie Herrin, who is now executive vice president of customer experience, Satchell will be working with Sree Kotay, chief software architect at Comcast, and his team.
"Chris's depth of product development experience across a variety of leading technology companies makes him uniquely qualified to lead this important work," says Comcast chief technology officer Tony Werner. "There's never been a more exciting time for product innovation, and I look forward to continuing to build on the great foundation that our product team has established."
Satchell touts several years of experience in product development under his belt. His most recent stint was at Nike as the sports apparel firm's consumer technology officer. With more than 1,600 workers under his helm, Satchell was responsible for the development of all of Nike's technology products, from Nike's websites, apps, e-commerce platforms and social media user experience to Nike's FuelBand smartband, a product that has since taken the back burner as the firm decided to focus on its fitness tracking platform.
Prior to Nike, Satchell worked at Internal Game Systems (IGT), a company that develops gambling games and lottery systems, as chief technology officer and head of R&D. Before IGT, he was again chief technology officer at Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, which is home to the Xbox, Xbox Live, Games for Windows and Microsoft Game Studios.
Throughout the Xbox 360's early days, Satchell was responsible for overseeing Microsoft's XNA game development program, which provides tools for amateurs, hobbyists and independent to develop their own games for a subscription fee.
He also has a long stint in game development, working for various game companies such as The 3DO Company, Silicon Dreams and Eidos Interactive. Satchell finished his post-graduate degree at the Longborough University in Leicester, England, where his research centered on distributed artificial intelligence.
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