While the conventional wisdom for the last several years has been that pay-TV companies are seeking to catch up with Netflix on delivering an overall customer experience, Comcast Cable CTO Sree Kotay says his company sees itself as offering a more luxury product compared to the SVOD platform.
"We kind of don't want to be Netflix. We don't want an $8 or $9 product," Kotay told Comcast’s local paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer.
"Not to knock them or anything, but we want to be a Tesla or a Mercedes and be a premium product," Kotay said. "The point of empowering our product and development teams is fundamentally not just about direction and ambition, it's also about tapping into their creativity, and that's how you make great products.”
The comments came amid the Inquirer’s visit to the 15th floor of the Comcast Center in Philadelphia, workplace to around 150 of the cable division’s engineers, technicians, and product developers.
Not only did top Comcast technology executives diminish Netflix, they also took some shots at Dish Network and DirecTV. This came directly from the top — Tony Werner, president of technology and product for Comcast Cable.
"We can do more in software in 24 hours than our satellite competitors can do in two years," Werner said, speaking to the regular updates Comcast is able to push out to its X1 customers via its two-way, cloud-based platform.
In the Inquirer profile, Werner also expresses hope that the Comcast Innovation and Technology Center — which is set to open in 2018 and serve as the new home for Comcast engineers — will help lure away tech talent from Silicon Valley to Philadelphia.
"We're committed to Philadelphia, we're committed to technology, and we're committed to talent, and that's what I like about it," Werner said.
For more:
- read this Philadelphia Inquirer
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