Jim Barton, one of the two founders of TiVo and its chief technology officer, resigned effective Friday, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing.
Barton had been responsible for TiVo's technical strategy, including product, service and partnership road maps. TiVo did not provide a reason for Barton's resignation.
In an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, TiVo said it will enter into a consulting agreement with Barton to continue to provide "certain consulting services related to patent matters, litigation, and certain technical matters to the company" until March 15, 2015, unless the agreement is terminated before then by either Barton or the company. TiVo will pay Barton $25,000 per month for his services.
"We are extremely grateful to Jim for his years of dedication and his commitment to innovation that he has provided to TiVo since its founding," TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said in a statement. "We are pleased that he will remain on in an advisory capacity and look forward to working with him in this new capacity in the future."
According to TiVo, the idea for the digital video recorder came to Barton and his co-founder, Mike Ramsay, while they were working together for Silicon Graphics Inc. on Time Warner Cable's Full Service Network interactive TV project in Orlando, Fla., in the 1990s.
Prior to co-founding TiVo in 1997, Barton was president and CEO of Network Age Software, which developed software targeted at managed electronic distribution.
At SGI, Barton was vice president and general manager of the systems software division. He also served as CTO of Interactive Digital Solutions Company, a joint venture of SGI and AT&T Network Systems created to develop interactive TV systems.
Prior to joining SGI, Barton held technical and management positions at Hewlett-Packard and Bell Laboratories in the areas of operating system and networking technology and product development. He holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a master's in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
In 2005, Ramsay resigned as CEO but remained chairman. He left TiVo's board in 2007.
