Microsoft TV Lures iTV Exec From Liberate

Microsoft Corp. has named John Walthall as its new director of worldwide sales for the Microsoft TV division. He will work with MSOs around the world to deploy iTV services based on the Microsoft TV platform

Walthall has more than 16 years of broadband sales experience. He comes to Microsoft from Liberate Technologies, where he was the vice president of sales for the Americas. He has also worked for GTE Systems Corp. and CableData Inc.