The head of Intel’s former TV division has abandoned ship

When Intel formally abandoned its IPTV project in a sale to Verizon, the team behind it transitioned as part of the deal. Now, only four months later, the man who’s been in charge of the venture all along has washed his hands of it, too. Erik Huggers, who originally outed Intel’s plan to create an IPTV service/hardware platform, moved to Verizon and continued on as project lead. There’s no indication that Huggers left on bad terms, or that OnCue’s progression is stagnating at Big Red.

Erik Huggers is leaving Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) just five months after joining the company via the acquisition of the Intel Corp (INTC.O) “OnCue” streaming service he developed, signaling the communications giant’s waning interest in providing an Internet-delivered TV service. The former BBC executive, who told Reuters on Friday he is departing the company, had worked on OnCue for Intel for more than two years before Verizon bought it in January to accelerate a push into video services, including TV channels delivered over the Internet, known as an “over the top”, or OTT, service. While other companies have been talking up their plans to deliver such a service, a source familiar with the matter said that Verizon was now moving away from the OTT strategy and that the departure of Huggers, who was a proponent of an Internet-only service, reflected that.