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Control4 Taps RealNetworks Engineer as New CEO
Founder Will West is now chairman, while Martin Plaehn becomes CEO of home automation firm that is approaching $100 million in revenues.
Martin Plaehn, Control4 CEO
Control4 has a new CEO: Martin Plaehn, a former executive at RealNetworks. Control4 announced the new chief yesterday, just a few months after Control4 co-founder Will West said he would retire from his role as CEO to serve as chairman of the home automation company.
Plaehn served for about seven years managing product lines and running business units at RealNetworks, the purveyor of RealPlayer and the once-promising RealDVD, a movie-ripping application that was quashed last year by the MPAA. At Real, Plaehn led the division for delivering audio and video to ISPs, telcos and mobile operators. He also held leadership roles in Real's gaming and SaaS (software as a service) business units.
As such, he seems like a guy that can help Control4 take its home-control platform to two places it needs to go: high-volume service providers and the cloud.
In addition, Plaehn served as CEO of Bungee Labs, a cloud computing company, and Viewpoint Digital, a creator and licensor of 3D digital content used by professional animators.
We thought Control4 might hire an ivory-tower CEO most notable for taking consumer electronics companies public, but that is not the case.
FLASHBACK 2004: Introducing Control4: Automation Vets Plan ‘Unrivaled’ Product Launch
“The most important thing for us is technical and operational acumen,” says West, who adds that Control4 is already well positioned to go public “if and when that time comes.”
West says, “We had a search committee and went through an extensive process. We looked at both prominent names and names that are less prominent. At the end of the day, we got someone with raw power and a good fit. We think we got a performer.”
Plaehn has a degree in math and experience managing “large groups of engineers,” West says.
After founding Control4 with partner Eric Smith in 2004 and taking the company to almost $100 million in revenues, West is looking forward to handing over the CEO reins.
“It’s wonderful for me,” he says. “I can focus on things I think I’m good at, like looking three or four years ahead. We’ve already done pretty well. The company is growing rapidly, and we’ve reached a significant scale. Now the question is how to get an order of magnitude bigger. I think Martin can get us there.”
Plaehn served for about seven years managing product lines and running business units at RealNetworks, the purveyor of RealPlayer and the once-promising RealDVD, a movie-ripping application that was quashed last year by the MPAA. At Real, Plaehn led the division for delivering audio and video to ISPs, telcos and mobile operators. He also held leadership roles in Real's gaming and SaaS (software as a service) business units.
As such, he seems like a guy that can help Control4 take its home-control platform to two places it needs to go: high-volume service providers and the cloud.
In addition, Plaehn served as CEO of Bungee Labs, a cloud computing company, and Viewpoint Digital, a creator and licensor of 3D digital content used by professional animators.
We thought Control4 might hire an ivory-tower CEO most notable for taking consumer electronics companies public, but that is not the case.
FLASHBACK 2004: Introducing Control4: Automation Vets Plan ‘Unrivaled’ Product Launch
“The most important thing for us is technical and operational acumen,” says West, who adds that Control4 is already well positioned to go public “if and when that time comes.”
West says, “We had a search committee and went through an extensive process. We looked at both prominent names and names that are less prominent. At the end of the day, we got someone with raw power and a good fit. We think we got a performer.”
Plaehn has a degree in math and experience managing “large groups of engineers,” West says.
After founding Control4 with partner Eric Smith in 2004 and taking the company to almost $100 million in revenues, West is looking forward to handing over the CEO reins.
“It’s wonderful for me,” he says. “I can focus on things I think I’m good at, like looking three or four years ahead. We’ve already done pretty well. The company is growing rapidly, and we’ve reached a significant scale. Now the question is how to get an order of magnitude bigger. I think Martin can get us there.”
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About the Author
Julie Jacobson, Editor-at-large, CE Pro
Julie Jacobson is co-founder of EH Publishing and currently spends most of her time writing for CE Pro, mostly in the areas of home automation, networked A/V and the business of home systems integration. She majored in Economics at the University of Michigan, earned an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and has never taken a journalism class in her life. Julie is a washed-up Ultimate Frisbee player with the scars to prove it. Follow her on Twitter @juliejacobson.
1 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
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Yeah and about time! Finally someone that knows what an SDLC is and that has not been tainted by the CE/CEDIA business as usual strategy. Thank God! Interesting that no one else here really thinks this is material. Unless this is just another reporting error, aka “Nirv not showing up a Cedia”.
This new hire should prove to be very, very interesting for Control4. Would love to get a peak at their 5 year SOD (Statement of direction) and road-map for it’s emerging application portfolio. Sure there will be some very exciting new software builds coming out… Would love to contrast their strategic SOD vs. Crestron/AMX. That would be very interesting for analyst to compare/contrast also.