Chutes & Ladders: Orb appoints Costello CEO

Orb Networks has appointed co-founder and chairman of the board Joe Costello as its CEO. Jim Behrens previously served as CEO, but according to reports, Behrens decided to defer the post to Costello, whom he felt was better equipped to handle "the huge opportunity" facing the company. That might translate into "huge competition" since Orb's placeshifting software is facing stiff competition from other pioneering startups like SlingMedia and tech giants like VeriSign, which plans to demo its place-shifting at CES this month. Costello has been on deck to succeed Behrens as CEO for nearly a year, but had to wait until he was no longer the top executive at a CAD software company called think3. Costello claims that Orb has about 500,000 users worldwide who use the software for about an hour a day on average.

For more on Orb's new CEO:
- see this post from NewTeeVee

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