Cisco Video Chief: TV Must Get the 'Net

TV providers shouldn't fight the Internet -- they should embrace it.

That's one of the key messages Enrique Rodriguez, newly installed as senior vice president and general manager of Cisco Systems' Service Provider Video Technology Group, is delivering to the company's customers. "The No. 1 thing this industry needs to understand is, there's no way you can match the scale and the innovation of the Internet," Rodriguez said. To that end, Cisco's next generation of set-top boxes will be hybrids that are "more eloquent" in providing access to both digital-cable video services and Internet content and applications. "It's not just bringing the browser to the television," Rodriguez noted. "It's more than that." Along with the shift to Web-delivered applications on TV, devices will become smaller and more of the intelligence will move into the network, Rodriguez said. Meanwhile, cable headends will shift away from proprietary hardware platforms to more of a mix of special-purpose equipment and software running on commodity hardware. "It's going to be very interesting to see who is my competitor -- and who is my ally -- in the next few years. I wish I knew what it will look like," he said.