Leadership
Canada lags behind U.S. in supporting small businesses
Feb 10th
by Christine Wong
We Canadians tend to get our backs up when people assume we’re exactly the same as Americans, but with different accents, eh?
For proof of just how different we are, take a look at how the two countries are using legislation to support startups.
Christine Wong
In the U.S., President Barack Obama is making his Startup America initiative a centerpiece of his campaign. Hit with charges that he hasn’t done enough to get the U.S. out of its economic sinkhole, he’s flogging the following legislative changes under the Startup America banner in the hope of winning a second term: Read the rest of this entry »
Small biz acquisition as a tech talent raid strategy
Feb 7th
by Nestor E. Arellano
There’s usually a lot of media hoopla, happy dances and high fives following announcements of a big biz acquisition of a promising tech industry startup.
The general perception is that a company that has struggled to develop its product and get it to market is finally getting the recognition, backing and mega bucks it deserves to get its game to the next level. In many cases, the reality is a business to which an entrepreneur had poured his heart and soul to, is most likely being closed down.
For many large conglomerates acquisition is not so much about getting its hands on technology as it is about a tech talent grab.
Nestor Arellano
Take the case of Summify, the Vancouver-based social summarizing tool purchased by Twitter last month. Summify is cool. It connected all your social networking feeds such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Then it automatically summarizes which content and updates are most relevant to you.
When Twitter bought the company they actually bought the team behind it. Co-founders Mircea Pasoi and Christian Strat and three engineers were reported to be on their way to San Franciscoto work at Twitter’s head office. Read the rest of this entry »
Should New York look to Montreal for tech hub model?
Feb 2nd
by Christine Wong
What’s the best way to turn a city into a world class hub for high tech startups?
Does a “build it and they will come” overnight approach really work? Or is it a process that can only happen organically over time?
Christine Wong
Michael Bloomberg, New York City’s tiny, brash, billionaire mayor (personal 2011 net worth: $20 billion), is taking the first approach. He’s trying to turn the Big Apple into the next Silicon Valley by offering up $100 million in city-owned land and infrastructure (for free) to build a two-million-square-foot high tech campus on Roosevelt Island, right in the heart of the city. Cornell University and Israel’s Technion Institute took the bait and are now developing the mega project together.
These New Yorkers aren’t fooling around: the campus’s first students are expected to start classes there by 2017, just five years from now. And Bloomberg is throwing some big numbers around, saying the plan could generate 600 startup companies which would in turn create another 30,000 jobs.
The Russians are on the same wavelength as Bloomberg. A similar venture is going on in sleepy Skolkovo, a town just outside Moscow where the Kremlin is building a sprawling facility to boost innovation in energy, IT, telecom, biotech and atomic technologies. The Kremlin is being secretive about exact plans and dollars spent (the KGB legacy is hard to shake, I guess). But skeptics are wondering how startups spawned there will flourish when government corruption and criminal gangs still interfere so much in the nation’s business community.
Canadian startups cashing chips way too early?
Jan 25th
by Christine Wong
Assessing the debris of the Research in Motiondebacle – longtime co-CEOs swept aside, stock price in shambles, failed PlayBook launch and customer confidence rocked by service outages – it’s easy to forget this fallen giant was once a Canadian IT startup.
Christine Wong
While founder Mike Lazaridis and his former co-CEO Jim Balsillie took heat for occupying the top jobs at RIM for far too long (27 and 19 years respectively), today’s startup founders seem to be hanging up their entrepreneur’s hats way earlier. There are no outlets that officially track tech startup M&A deals. But according to an unofficial count by Techvibes, there were 35 Canadian startups acquired in 2011, up from 27 in 2010.
Why are so many Canadian tech startups cashing in their chips early instead of soldiering on to grow and develop their companies into the next RIM (pre-meltdown, of course)? Read the rest of this entry »
This anti-piracy battle may nearly be won, but the war isn’t over
Jan 19th
Minecraft.net's Web strike day splash page graphic.
By Brian Jackson
“PIPA and SOPA? How about NOPA!” So read the protest splash page on Minecraft.net in place of its usual content during Wednesday’s Web strike against anti-piracy legislation being considered by U.S. lawmakers.
While the legislation hasn’t been defeated yet and many Web firms that joined in the protest say they aren’t done, surely they must be doing at least a small happy dance after the Web strike stunt went so swimmingly. Twitter lit up like a Christmas tree with support for the movement and shocked statements of surprise about Wikipedia not being available to instantly deliver answers (which made me concerned about some student’s ability to research, but I digress). Several U.S. law makers publically backed away from supported the Stop Online Piracy Act (in Congress) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (in the Senate), and Google reported that 7 million signed its online petition against the bills.
Even the White House publically acknowledged a petition against the bills, saying “we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”
But the White House staff writing the letter also had this appeal: “Rather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here? Don’t limit your opinion to what’s the wrong thing to do, ask yourself what’s right.”
This points out that even if SOPA and PIPA are defeated, the root problem hasn’t been solved. There are powerful content-based industries out there that see their business model as being under threat. Without the ability to control the means of distribution as it used to, the movie and music industries are seeing what used to be profitable business models slowly erode. While I’m skeptical that piracy has played as crucial a role in this as industry lobby groups say that it has, it is no doubt a part of the problem. Piracy, and Internet distribution systems in general have created a generation that expects to be able to receive content for free.
This race to the bottom on price is perhaps most evident in the mobile app market, as I was reminded when attending this week’s GameON: Finance conference in Toronto. A couple of years ago, it was common to see almost as many paid-for apps in Apple’s App Store as there were free apps. But now there are so many free apps to compete against that most mobile developers consider it folly to even try to put a price tag on their product. The accepted ratio of mobile app downloaders willing to pay versus never willing to pay is two per cent to 98 per cent. Read the rest of this entry »
Why aren’t there more women in the tech startup scene?
Jan 12th
by Christine Wong
I’ve asked myself the exact same question while departing various startup events here in Toronto over the past few months.
Where are all the women?
Christine Wong
At one such event this past fall, only a handful of the hundred or so participants were female. At another, I spied one smartly dressed young woman near the front of the room and assumed she was one of the dozen startups there making pitches to a gathering of VCs and angels. When I introduced myself and asked which startup she was with, she smiled and said, “Oh no, I’m just here to watch my husband’s pitch.”
She was the only woman in the entire room besides me. Read the rest of this entry »
OLED, Smart and 3D TVs prominent at CES 2012
Jan 11th
Samsung showcases its Super OLED TVs at CES 2012
by Elliott Chun
Leading up to this year’s show, industry insiders expected OLED to take the cake as a top news maker of CES after unveiling in big-screen formats. This is certainly true, with Korean electronics giants LG and Samsung strutting 55-inch OLED TVs and drawing plenty of crowds to fuel the fanfare. Read the rest of this entry »
Get ready for CES 2012: 10 must haves if you’re in Vegas this week
Jan 9th
A new year means a new Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The desert city plays host to 45th annual show where geeks like me go nuts over the latest connected gizmos, gadgets and appliances. Appliances? Yes, they too are becoming more aligned with this connected world we live in and they are growing in focus during the world’s largest electronics expo. I am looking forward to what big players like Samsung and LG have to in that category. More on that this week.
On the ‘press day’ of CES 2012 and for my inaugural post on ITBusiness.ca, I thought it might be entertaining (- or helpful if you are also in Vegas -) to see what must-have ‘tools’ are needed during the four-day show.
Here are my top 10 must-haves to survive CES 2012: Read the rest of this entry »
Ottawa tech acceletor stumbled on early-stage financing – OCRI chief
Jan 9th
By Francis Moran
In Part 1 we spoke with Bruce Lazenby, who is less than three months into his new job as president and CEO of OCRI. These days, the only constant is change as the organization works to remake a tarnished image under new leadership, with the support of a mayor whose election platform focused heavily on boosting economic development throughout the region.
Lazenby acknowledged how OCRI has fallen short in terms of serving the needs of young entrepreneurs, the need to better work with this group, and how it must engage with the broader community. We spoke about a new culture of collaboration with other stakeholders across the city, such as the universities and privately run business incubators, and the long overdue launch of Ottawa’s first accelerator centre. Read the rest of this entry »
Small business confidence deserves closer analysis
Jan 5th
by Shane Schick
When things look bleak, we tend to say that “no news is good news.” When things start looking up, on the other hand, good news is sometimes treated as if it’s not news at all.
Shane Schick, editor-in-chief, IT World Canada
Consider the spate of perfunctory coverage devoted to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) recent Business Barometer Index, which showed more small businesses expressing confidence about their prospects in the months ahead. After some downward trending due to worries about foreign markets, the CFIB reported a return to “near normal” levels, meaning that overall, SMBs expect to see stronger performance for 2012. The mainstream media regurgitated the bare bones of the story, but it’s worth taking a closer look at where the confidence is coming from, and what the remaining challenges are.
