IT Life: Göran Appelquist, CTO Edgeware

What is your role and who do you work for?

I’m the CTO at Edgeware, which provides operators and content owners with the tools to deliver their TV services over IP at huge scale and low cost.

How long have you been in IT?

Over 20 years

What is your most interesting project to date?

I was part of the team at Edgeware that introduced the market to the world’s first network appliance for video streaming.

What is your biggest challenge at the moment?

I’m currently working on how to best leverage cloud-based software and the latest network architectures which are built around SDN (software defined networks) and network functions virtualization (NFV) for video streaming applications.

At Edgeware our goal is to deliver TV services with no buffering, no delays and no glitches so it’s important to incorporate the latest network workflows to do this.

What technology were you working with ten years ago?

I was working with field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) that were being used for the real-time processing of video.

What is your favourite technology of all time?

The world-wide web is just all-encompassing. It’s enabled so much that there isn’t an industry or consumer experience that’s not been touched – or revolutionized – by the internet.

How will the Internet of Things affect your organisation?

I don’t think the IoT will have any significant impact on Edgeware as an organisation but it will have an impact on the network infrastructures we use and the space we operate in.

As more appliances, applications and devices communicate with products or services, the networks used will become more crowded. If bandwidth demand continues to grow, OTT and other IP-delivered TV services will increasingly benefit from building their own networks instead of renting space from an existing network.

What smartphone do you use?

iPhone 6

What three apps could you not live without?

Going back to my favourite technology, I couldn’t live without Mail, Maps and Chrome.

What new technology are you most excited for a) your business and b) yourself?

For Edgeware, network architectures that utilise NFV are going to be a very exciting prospect. Personally, I’m excited about seeing where VR goes – it will be good to watch a football game from my living room and feel like I’m really there.

If you weren’t doing the job you do now, what would you be doing?

Playing guitar

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