Arris Exec to Become BlackArrow's CTO

Joe Matarese, one of cable's top engineering minds in the fields of on-demand video and advanced advertising, is leaving Arris Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ARRS) to become the technological lead at BlackArrow Inc. , Light Reading Cable has learned.

His start date isn't known, but Matarese recently informed Arris that he would be heading to BlackArrow, a company that specializes in Web-based ad campaign management and ad decision systems, and counts Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) among its backers.

Matarese will be joining BlackArrow as chief technology officer, sources say, filling a post that's been vacant since Sharon Mandell left the company a couple of years ago.

Arris confirmed on Thursday that Matarese has been offered a "senior strategic role" at BlackArrow. "We wish him well and look forward to working with him real soon," an Arris official said, noting that Arris and BlackArrow have collaborated on a range of projects, interoperability tests and product demonstrations. (See Arris, BlackArrow Do VOD Ads.)

BlackArrow declined to comment.

Matarese, currently vice president of Arris's On Demand business unit, joined the company in 2007 when Arris acquired C-COR Inc. Before that, he was with nCUBE Corp., a video-on-demand server and software pioneer that C-COR snapped up in 2004. (See Arris Deals for C-COR and C-Cor Buys nCube for $89.5 Million.)

He'll be joining BlackArrow at a key time, as the cable industry is finally amping up its ability to splice ads into VoD streams on-the-fly and is pursuing new forms of targeted advertising. Though much of cable's recent work in those areas have focused on video delivered to set-top boxes, the industry will also be working on ways to apply those techniques to TV Everywhere fare and to over-the-top content delivered via broadband. (See Comcast Signals New Ad Era for VoD, Comcast, BlackArrow Team on VoD Ads , BlackArrow Does TV Ads Everywhere and BlackArrow Upgrades Target VoD Advertising .)

Matarese, whose experience goes back to cable's early work with VoD and dynamic ad insertion, is expected to be a key asset for BlackArrow in all those areas.

Arris, meanwhile, has no immediate plans to replace Matarese, noting that it has a "strong bench" in all functions in its Media and Communications Systems business, which covers advanced advertising technology and VoD platforms.

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable