A vendor of Linux set-top box designs has hired a former Microsoft employee as CTO. Nathaniel S. Brown will join CAC Media after ten years at Microsoft, where he helped the company evolve its application message-passing architecture and get its gaming strategy off the ground.

Brown helped Microsoft transition from COM (component object model) to .NET/CLR, according to CAC Media, and along with four cohorts, later incubated and initiated Microsoft's Xbox strategy. Brown has also served as an advisor on various business and intellectual property issues with consumer electronic software firms and startups, and has has worked extensively with Linux/uClinux on embedded ARM and non-x86 systems, CAC Media says.

CAC Media and its hardware partner and investor Video Without Boundaries rolled out a hardware/software reference design for “convergent media devices” based on Linux in September of 2003, shortly after being accepted as a member of CELF (Consumer Electronics Linux Forum). The companies subsequently launched a developers program aimed at building a third-party software ecosystem around the software component of their reference design, dubbed MediaReady Convergent Software Suite (MCSS).

The CAC/VWB reference design, as licensed by Lafayette
(Click to enlarge)
Brown said, “As a long-time Linux user and programmer, I am thrilled to come out of the Windows closet and join C.A.C.'s effort to keep the digital home open and interoperable – to put a tux on every TV!”

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