PopCap Gets Adobe Veteran Habermann As CTO

PopCap has a new CTO in Adobe tech veteran Frits Haberman. After 20 years with Adobe, where he was most recently VP of Core Technologies, he'll now contribute his experience to the casual game developer's tech strategy. Haberman has held strategy and management roles for Adobe products like Photoshop, Flash and Acrobat, and he's also worked with RealNetworks on engineering initiatives for its casual game portfolio. "Frits brings strong leadership and deep management experience, with a long history of products that focus on the user experience as it relates to technology and vice versa," says PopCap EVP of Studios Ed Allard, to whom Haberman will now report. Allard says Frits' "passion for gaming" also makes him a good fit for PopCap's goal to "expand our own cross-platform offerings to stake out a leadership position in social gaming and emerging technologies like the iPad." Former CTO and PopCap co-founder Brian Fiete is transitioning to a new role as Technology Fellow, the company says. Says Habermann: "PopCap has created a flourishing business model by mixing creative passion with technological excellence, and I'm looking forward to helping the company scale its rapidly growing technology vision on a diverse set of platforms." "I'm particularly looking forward to applying my experience with Flash and growing large technical organizations to PopCap's plans in the social gaming arena, where there's still so much to be learned and created," adds the new CTO.