Enrique Rodriguez, a former Cisco Systems and Microsoft exec who most recently was with Sirius XM, has been named executive vice president and chief technical officer for AT&T, the company confirmed.
In that role, he’ll oversee both U-verse and DirecTV and help to lead up the technical integration of those services,Variety first reported, noting that former DirecTV CTO Rômulo Pontual left after AT&T closed its merger with DirecTV in July. AT&T also confirmed Pontual's departure.
Regarding integration, AT&T has tapped Ericsson to help out, selecting the vendor to “enhance” the telco’s TV platform and work with AT&T to evolve its satellite and wireline TV platform. Last month, AT&Tannounced (subscription required) that it would use a derivative of DirecTV’s gateway-client architecture to establish a more uniform, cloud-based video platform for the combined company. AT&T's U-verse platform is currently powered by Ericsson Mediaroom (Ericsson acquired Mediaroom from Microsoft in September 2013).
Rodriiguez, formerly the EVP of operations, products and connected vehicle at Sirius XM, left in July, and was replaced by James A. Cady.
Before that, Rodriguez ran Cisco’s Service Provider Video Technology Group as SVP and GM, but left in August 2011, about year after taking on that post. He joined Cisco in June 2010 after running Microsoft’s TV, video and music business. Before joining Microsoft in 2003, Rodriguez spent more than 20 years at Thomson/RCA.
