Be a player netflix software#
During this process, the team refined everything from the software and user interface to the device’s thermal requirements and supply chain. The Netflix Player had gone through the typical development stages, which are traditionally referred to as EVT, DVT, and PVT–that is, engineer, design, and product validation testing. Hastings had been toying with the idea since before streaming was common and YouTube was a household name–back when Netflix even considered building a DVD player that housed a hard drive, where movies could be downloaded and temporarily stored.
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To understand how radical of departure this was internally, says Roku CEO Anthony Wood, who was then leading project Griffin, “You have to understand the dynamic inside the company.” For years, engineers had been developing the technology behind product, such as video buffering and compression tools, which would allow Internet bandwidth to keep up with streaming media. But the story behind Hastings’ decision, which is more clearly justified in hindsight, shows his unique grasp of the industry and willingness to buck the system.
Be a player netflix tv#
Last quarter, its 29 million streaming members consumed more than 3 billion hours of TV shows and movies, making Netflix the biggest cable TV network in the U.S., according to one analyst. Its service is now ubiquitous, accessible on computers, smartphones, tablets, Internet-connected TVs, Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, and video game consoles. By shelving its hardware and remaining an agnostic platform, Netflix was able to transform itself into a digital powerhouse and become the dominant player in subscription streaming video. But it also proved to be one of Hastings’ most prescient. His decision, made almost exactly five years ago this month, was one of the riskiest moves in Netflix’s history. To the surprise of most employees at the company, Hastings decided to kill The Netflix Player, and spin the team out as a separate company. “‘But if I’m making my own hardware, Steve’s not going to take my call.'” “Reed said to me one day, ‘I want to be able to call Steve Jobs and talk to him about putting Netflix on Apple TV,'” recalls one high-level source.
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The problem? Hastings realized that if Netflix shipped its own hardware, it would complicate potential partnerships with other hardware makers. Yet after all the years and resources and talent invested in the project (a team of roughly 20 had been working on it around the clock, from ironing out the industrial design and user interface to taking trips to Foxconn to finalize production details), Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was having serious second thoughts. It was December 2007, and the device was just weeks away from launching.