HBO will provide HBO streaming service in April during the premiere of Game of Thrones.
We reported a few months ago that a standalone HBO streaming service will soon become a reality. At the time we did not have a premiere date or price points. But, it seems as though the standalone service will arrive this April alongside Game of Thrones.
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Rather than build the technology internally, the company has struck a deal to use external technology offering from MLB Advanced, according to sources familiar with the situation. MLB Advanced already provides white-label streaming technology for clients like WWE Network, but HBO will likely be its largest client. It’s unclear what this means for the future of HBO Go, the company’s existing streaming service for cable subscribers.
HBO hopes to launch the new standalone streaming service in line with the Game of Thrones season premiere in April. [Fortune]
Read more: ‘Game of Thrones’ Premiere Crashes HBO Go Service
Now what will happen with HBO GO? With outages occurring every week on popular shows such as Game of Thrones and True Detective, many people assumed that HBO was interested in getting rid of their streaming service. Many people blame HBO’s former chief technology officer Otto Berkes for causing the issues.
Since becoming HBO’s CTO in 2012, Berkes has brought in a number of his ex-colleagues from Microsoft and set up a large office in Seattle with 55 engineers, laying off a number of longtime employees in New York. The Seattle office, which is rumored to cost HBO as much as $100 million per year, has been the source of internal squabbling at the company. Insiders accused Berkes of building “a Napoleonic empire” within HBO…
According to sources, Berkes had known about a “memory leak” for nine months but decided it was a “non-issue.” That leak eventually led to the HBO Go outages. Internally, some accused Berkes of using the outages as a way to ask for more money to invest in his Seattle engineering team. He got the investment, but HBO executives have not been pleased with what he’s delivered. Berkes delayed product launches and was unable to deliver on upgrades. “If you look at what [HBO Go] is today versus two years ago, he hasn’t really done anything,” one source said. (via)
Read more: HBO’s ‘True Detective’ Causes HBO GO to Crash
Berkes also resigned soon as HBO announced they will be delivering a standalone service. This may mean that this is the end of HBO Go and it may force you to pay for a streaming service instead of it actually being included in your HBO package.
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