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Thompson Multimedia Engineering

Helping Startup and Enterprise companies leverage Multimedia and the AWS Cloud to Succeed in the Internet Age

The Opportunity

By Greg Thompson, posted September 8, 2016

There has never been before such an opportunity for new ideas and products to reach a global market as we have today via the Internet. A small team of individuals can rapidly build and offer new products or services worldwide in a matter of days and weeks instead of months and years, and at a far lower cost than it took our parents and grandparents to achieve the same level of achievement,  An offering that addresses a real need can reach millions in revenue and become a market leader even before the companies and products it obsoletes knows what happened, while new offerings that fail to find an audience can be rapidly terminated or pivioted without waisting a lot of time, effort and fortune.



What has made this entrepreneurship opportunity possible is a combination of business and development strategies, including Lean Startup, Incubators and Accelerators and Agile Development, combined with modern open source, mobile web, cloud computing, multimedia, and networking technologies.  You do not have to turn your ideas into a viable company by yourself.  You can leverage, combine and build upon what others have already created to craft your solution to a common customer problem in a unique, efficient and elegant way.  This enables you to rapidly transform your ideas into code, product and service offerings, getting them in front of customers, measure and learn from those offerings, and then drive improvements in a rapid continuous cycle.  Innovation is what drives economic opportunity and today's technology has never before made it easier.


But what is needed to be successful is help in identifying and leveraging the modern technologies in a cost effective, rapid way using an approach that provides the level of reliability expected from a successful company independent of the amount of growth that company might experience.  Providing that assistance is the goal of the i-GATE Innovation Hub, its facility called The Switch, and of Thompson Multimedia Engineering, all located in beautiful downtown Livermore. Through a local Tri-Valley community network of talented and experienced individuals, we look to help you get your ideas and company off the ground.

My Capabilities

Helping you leverage modern Internet technologies

Through my years at Digital Equipment Corp., nCUBE Inc., Cisco Systems and Huawei Technologies, I have participated in significant technology evolutions and have learned what works and what doesn't.  From my time as a co-founder at Interlink Computer Sciences, Inc. and more recently working with startups TerrAvion, Cinespots, NovaSolix, Trunomi, and others, I have identified and leveraged a key set of technologies that can be utilized by startups and enterprises who wish to improve their competitive position and maximize success.  The primary technology areas I focus on are:

AWS Cloud

No one area has driven down IT costs and made it much more agile than the innovative cloud services developed by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Named by Gartner as the cloud leader for the 6th consequtive year, their managed "pay only what you use" services have obsoleted the traditional data center.

I have developed multiple application back-ends leveraging AWS Elastic Beanstalk, EC2, S3, CloudFront, RDS, DynamoDBElastiCache, VPC, Route 53, CloudWatch, IAM, SNS, SES, SQS, and others, and am currently developing serverless solutions using AWS Lambda, IoT, Cognito, and API Gateway, with Node.jsPython, MySQL, Redis, DynamoDB and variants of C.

Web Technologies

Nothing has enabled rich user interfaces more than the web standards that emerged from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).  Supported by all leading browsers including (Google ChromeMicrosoft EdgeApple Safari, Opera, and Mozilla Firefox) they have enabled everyone to access information anywhere from any preferred device.

I've developed many web applications leveraging HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, AngularJS, Bootstrap, Mobirise, JSON, ATOM, and Git.  Plus using tools like Apache Cordova, jQuery Mobile, PhoneGap, and Ionic, web-based apps can become native Android and Apple iOS apps as well, available for download via Google Play and Apple's App stores.

Video & Multimedia

Nothing engages users and potential customers like rich media, including photos, graphics, animation and videos. From my work in VoD and ITU-T SG9, SG16 and IPTV-FG and as a long time member of SMPTE and SCTE, I have developed lots of experience in video and ways to deliver it reliably over different networks and the Internet.

Through these efforts I have worked extensively with MPEG-2MPEG-4/AVC (H.264), and Digital Cinema videos with PCM,  MP3, AAC, Dolby Digital (AC-3), or DTS audio, in MPEG-4 part 14 (.mp4), MPEG-2 TS (.ts), or DCP containers over ATM, RTP/UDP, or HTTP using HLS or MPEG-DASH, protected by UltraViolet and other DRM systems.

Mobile Networking

Metcalfe's law states that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users.  The Internet using the TCP/IP protocol suite showed this to be true, transforming society more than any other invention, with mobility and Internet-of-Things (IoT) currently making everything always connected.

Starting at MIT Project MAC with Maze Wars, I worked on DECnet and other network technologies before focusing on TCP/IP, delivering video over QAM, ATM, Ethernet, WiFi, and LTE, supported by QoS, FEC, and other error correction strategies. Today I'm working mostly with REST-based APIs, HTTPMQTT, and WebSockets over the Internet.

Amazon Web Services:
AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional
License JFT192YCKMVEQWCQ, Expires Dec 2021
AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
License V6R4YMS2DBBE1690, Expires Jan 2022
AWS Certified Developer - Associate
License 1DZWY8C1J1BEQY58, Expires Dec 2021
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate
License XTR87N4KBMR11W9M, Expires Dec 2021

I participated in 3 acquisitions at Cisco including Scientific Atlanta and Arroyo Video Solutions and am known as the lead developer of the world's first first-person shooter game known as Maze Wars.


I also participated in multiple Patent areas, including using MazeWars as prior art for Electronic Arts, the SeaChange VoD patent battles, was active on the Cisco video CPOL committee, and as an expert witness for the Jones Day law firm defending Zynga and Proskauer law firm defending Tyco/Exacq.

To help create and improve business in the Tri-Valley areas of Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon, and Danville so more people can work near where they live and help solve the terrible commute problem to Silicon Valley, improving the quality of life for all of us.


Other organizations helping to improve business in the Tri-Valley include Innovation Pleasanton, Innovation Tri-Valley, LLNL and Sandia Labs and their Livermore Valley Open Campus, the Robot Garden, Las Positas College, and Bishop Ranch Intelligence Innovation Accelerator (BRIIA).

As an MIT Alumnus and member of the MIT Educational Council, I help and interview bright high school students from the Tri-Valley and central valley areas who are interested in applying to MIT as an undergraduate.


My wife Michelle and I live in and enjoy downtown Livermore, love travel and visiting our 3 daughter's familes who live nearby.

How Can I Help You?

Let's get started bringing your idea to fruition, or re-positioning
your established company for success in the modern Internet age.