Hulu's hiring of Tian Lim as chief technology officer is long overdue, Fool contributor Tim Beyers says in the following video.
Not so much that Lim, specifically, should have been on the payroll, but that someone of his caliber has been needed in-house for a while, Tim argues. Former CTO Richard Tom left the company, along with founding CEO Jason Kilar, about a year ago. Netflix (NFLX -0.62%) been on a tear since, funding new originals and opening new territories.
Part of what makes the Netflix story appealing -- or at least more appealing than Hulu's -- is that the service works seamlessly on a huge range of devices. Remember the Wii U? Netflix was so fast to support the device that Nintendo was still working on its own "TVii" service when the streamer went live on the console.
Moreover, Tim says, the company's technology includes a built-in content delivery network, or CDN, for accelerating streams to customers in certain high-traffic regions. The service should also help to protect against Internet Service Providers who choose to take advantage of the more lax net neutrality regulations and throttle Netflix's streams. Hulu doesn't appear to enjoy similar safeguards.
Lim, whose experience at Sony includes bringing Hulu Plus to PlayStation consoles, is now responsible for remedying that. It's about time someone was.
Now it's your turn to weigh in. What new services do you want to see Hulu offer? How would you differentiate from Netflix? Please watch the video to get Tim's full take, then leave a comment to let us know what you think, and whether you would buy, sell, or short Netflix stock at current prices.
