A SOFTWARE ENTREPRENEUR WHO REVOLUTIONIZED TECH WITH CABLE AND CONSUMER ELECTRONICS

It is never an easy step to start your own business. The thought of presenting an idea in the open-world, and pitching or selling it to the masses always scares many. Most entrepreneurs give up at the early stage of the business startup; some survive the first wave of decline and depression, while others fail miserably, and only a few emerge as winners. Many business owners undercut and do not realize the market demand for a product, and others overvalue the expectation of their product.

Technological progress is making great strides. Technological innovation has been leading socio-economic changes in the world for centuries, serving as a connecting channel between societies and science and technology.

The term technological innovation refers to the results of new technological developments, combinations of existing technologies or the use of another knowledge acquired by those responsible for developing the project.

Imagine the current world, in which there is no programming language that we know, where there are no operating systems or computers on which to run them, the interactivity between user and computer does not exist because there is no program with which you can interact. Aircraft reservations or any other service have to be done in the old school way, filling in records by hand because transactions cannot be made. Today, innovation erases the concepts of hypermedia, virtualization, garbage collector and connectivity from your mind.

All these concepts are very important, since a kind of domino effect was unleashed, in which the development of a thing took us from point A to point B and that development has been growing significantly up to what we currently know.

The primary problem lies not in the product launch's timing but the purpose of its introduction to the public. A business should address the growing needs of the people and present essential features to fill them. Shiva Patibanda is yet another individual who realized the technology gap in consumer electronics and cable STBs while working with consumer electronic customers. He bridged the gap between them by:

1. Implementing a complete Software Stack for US Open Cable Set Top Boxes (STB) that is currently deployed in over 40 million Comcast X1 Xfinity brand of Cable STB in the US and in several million STB from Liberty Global in Europe sold under the Horizon-2 Brand of Cable TV. This software stack is established as the industries’ Reference Design Kit (RDK) and is widely used in the Cable Industry as a shared source. Shiva has earned the nick name of Godfather of the RDK for his early contributions to RDK 1.0.
2. Leading a consortium of Consumer Electronic companies in the early 2000s in creating Home Audio Video interoperability (HAVi) standard to seamlessly connect Audio Video equipment from different manufacturers and in creating the only commercial implementation of the HAVi software that was deployed in leading brands of HDTV (Mitsubishi and RCA) in the early 2000s.
3. Deploying VividLogic’s FireBus IEEE-1394 software and deploying it in over 60 Million US Cable STB manufactured by Scientific Atlanta, Pace and in over 5 million HDTV from Samsung, Mitsubishi, RCA, Pioneer, Panasonic (Japan), Hitachi (Japan), Funai and Philips.

Shiva Patibanda is from Vijayawada, India. He graduated with bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from Andhra University College of Engineering, Visakhapatnam in 1982, he joined Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, and completed his Master's Computer Science program in 1984.

After studying the graduation and post-graduation programs back-to-back, Shiva Patibanda started his professional life in the Silicon Valley and joined Daisy System, a pioneer in Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) where he worked with a team of engineers developing early versions of Schematic Editors and Netlisters for the VLSI (Chip) design. He later worked on Large Telecom Network Management Systems at Nippon Electric Company (NEC) in San Jose, CA as Engineering Manager. At NEC Shiva received firsthand experience with Software Engineering Architect of Network Management Systems, large scale deployment and Operational support of telco networks deployed in New Jersey Bell and Bell Atlantic in the US.

Shiva joined Sony in 1993 as Engineering Manager and let the development to of the Sony’s BZA-8100, a one-of-a-kind Broadcast Automation system of the time which was deployed by DirecTV in it Castle Rock, Colorado.

Shiva moved from Sony Electronics and founded MasterLogic Inc a company specializing in creating “Turn-Key software solutions” in Fermont, CA, in 1996. The company worked closely with Sony Electronics and Hewlett Packard R&D Labs and helped develop software to control Audio Video Devices and Printers. As the CEO of MasterLogic Inc., Shiva had the opportunity to work for British Telecom based in London, England. His company developed and delivered CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) based distributed management systems to enable One Number Services and various voice mail features in London, England based on Magellin Front End Switches.

With a track record of ten plus years in the networking of commercial Home Audio Video Devices and Telco Networks, Shiva Patibanda, in the year 1999, founded VividLogic Inc. in Silicon Valley. The company initially developed embedded Firewire (IEEE-1394 specification from Apple) based Home Networking software and licensed it under the brand name of FireBus Software which was deployed in around 5 million HDTVs of various US brands, including Samsung, Hitachi, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Pioneer, RCA, Philips, and more. From 1999 to 2010, Shiva Patibanda revolutionized Cable STB and HDTVs by developing HAVi (Home Audio Video interoperability), Cable Card, and OCAP (OpenCable Application Platform) consumer electronics software.

In eleven years of journey, Shiva’s VividLogic Inc. evolved the HDTV software and introduced many advancements in cable viewership. VividLogic was create in 1999 and was acquired in 2010 by SeaChange International for 29 Million dollars, VividLogic had no debt and never took venture funding.

After VividLogic Inc.'s acquisition, Shiva took the position of Chief Technology Officer and SVP at SeaChange International. He continued deliver end-to-end solutions for TV Operators for the next five years. VividLogic’s Cable Software was established as the Cable Industry Standard (RDK 1.0) in 2010 and it powers Comcast X1 video platform. As a CTO, Shiva worked closely with Comcast in the US and Liberty Global in Europe and South America and deployed SeaChange Nucleus STB software and Adrenalin software Back office in TV networks worldwide.

Shiva has recently shifted his professional approach from developing software solutions towards an investor and Advisory role. He serves an advisor to CEO of Ericsson Media Solutions (now known as MediaKind) and is utilizing and channeling his engineering experience and business entrepreneurship of the last two decades by serving as investor and advisor to PeopleShores, Smiota Incorporated located in California and to Locomizer based in London, England.