Six months after joining the corporation from Microsoft, (NSDQ: MSFT) BBC future media and technology controller Erik Huggers has penned a blog post looking back at his transition that might rankle with his former employer: “My true passion is all about using cutting edge digital media technologies to establish new innovative services for consumers. When I realised that, I knew that it was time to move on.” Ouch!
The Dutchman had worked as a senior director for MS’ entertainment business, with responsibility for driving Windows Media adoption amongst European broadcasters amongst other things. The announcement of his move was made along with senior defections from BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) and Virgin Radio in May. Huggers may have wanted to innovate elsewhere but he promptly brought two Microsoft alumni with him – Jon Billings from the Windows Media team to a team responsible for developing iPlayer and former MSN developer Anthony Rose from Kazaa as head of digital media technology.
Huggers’ post continues: “I had great success stories but also my share of failures during the Microsoft years. However hard I worked, I was always trying to convince third parties to adopt platform technologies.” The post was obviously written last week as it references Huggers’ keynote “at the FutureMedia conference today”, although that event was last Wednesday (see our post).