OLUME UMBER Inside THIS EDITION Women aim high for tech ... · cash flow statement,notes to the...

VOLUME 9, NUMBER 5 JUNE 2003

NEWS LEADER FOR TORONTO’S HIGH TECH COMMUNITY

PH

OTO

BY:

Ste

phen

Uhr

aney

www.siliconvalleynorth.com

Inside THIS EDITION

For more information see page 7or visit us at

www.the-ca.ca

We will lead you to the best of IT Services and Resources in the

World and save you money.

Women aim highfor tech success

WHOLE NEW APPROACHXerox plans to regain its

market share againstcompetitors with new strategy

see page 5

LENS TECHNOLOGYResearch at the University of

Toronto could hail nextbreakthrough in telecoms

see page 8

GTA NICHEFixed wireless company findssuccess by targeting suburban

businessessee page 9

Rony RossExecutive Chairman and Founder,Panorama Software SystemsBeing yourself can pay dividendsin the world of IT.See page 7

2 • Silicon Valley NORTH June 2003

Interested parties outside the high-tech communities may subscribe at the following postage prepaid annual rates:• Annual subscription (12 issues) $42 in Canada including GST • Annual subscription (12 issues) $45(U.S.) for U.S.A.• Annual National (All 3 issues each month) $123 in Canada including GST • Annual National (All 3 issues each month) $125(U.S.) for U.S.A.Please visit: www.siliconvalleynorth.com/subscribe.html to complete your subscription request

Silicon Valley NORTH is published by

PUBLISHERBert Kleiser 416-368-1886 [email protected]

EDITORJohn Carson 416-368-1886 [email protected]

SALES..............................TORONTO & WESTERN CANADA

SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVECarol Lynne Hynes 416-368-1886 [email protected]

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVEJohn Pasqualitto 416-368-1886 ext. [email protected]

OTTAWA

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVESteve MacDonald [email protected]

PRODUCTION..........................PRODUCTION SUPERVISORMark Hindson [email protected]

CIRCULATION..........................NATIONAL DISTRIBUTIONCOORDINATORGale Fiala 416-368-1886 ext. 233

[email protected]

Canadian Publication Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40017542ISSN 1203-8601Silicon Valley NORTH is published by SVN Media Inc.Complimentary distribution for Qualified High-Tech Firms

99 Atlantic Avenue, Su i te 309To r o n t o , O n t a r i o M 6 K 3 J 8Phone:416.368.1886 Fax:416.368.1889

www.s i l i conval leynor th.com

Bert Kleiser, President

News - [email protected] - [email protected]

Events - [email protected] - [email protected]

Reader Submissions

Silicon Valley NORTH is protected by copyright ©2003. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of SVN Media Inc. is prohibited.

By uniting the complementary capacities oftwo of its research institutes, the NationalResearch Council (NRC) is finding new waysto assist Canadian industry. This columndescribes activities of the Information andCommunications Technologies (ICT) Group,composed of the Institute for MicrostructuralSciences (IMS), which develops IT hardware,and the Institute for Information Technology(IIT), which focuses on software applications.

At first glance Hollywood and scientific research

in software and systems technologies seem to

have little in common.

But pioneering work in the early 1970s led to the

development of software techniques for comput-

er animation that earned two now-retired IIT

researchers several kudos, including an Academy

Award. And today, the results of IIT s sustained

research in 3D imaging technology are behind

some of the flashiest special effects in

Hollywood s latest blockbuster release, The

Matrix Reloaded.

That s because an Ottawa-based company, XYZ-

RGB, created the stunning effects using the IIT

laser scanning technology commercialized by

Arius3D, one of IIT s licensees.

XYZ-RGB used what Arius3D now calls the

Arius3D Foundation system, capturing surface

topology (xyz) while simultaneously recording

intrinsic colour (rgb), regardless of ambient light.

The result? In The Matrix Reloaded, hundreds of

realistic, believable and life-like cyber-actors

playing the part of Agent Smith, arch enemy to

Keanu Reeves Neo.

However, IIT s success with this globally recog-

nized 3D imaging technology extends far beyond

flashy sci-fi feature films. Because the patented

technology can create 3D models of unsurpassed

precision, its enormous potential for the conser-

vation, research and archiving of heritage arti-

facts has drawn considerable international inter-

est.

IIT researchers have demonstrated the digitiza-

tion of archeological sites, ethnological collec-

tions, paintings, sculptures and architectural fea-

tures on historical buildings. And the Canadian

Museum of Nature has recently opened a new 3D

Imaging Centre, based on the technology.

The technology also has tremendous potential in

space-based applications. IIT researchers worked

with Neptec Design Group another IIT licens-

ee to develop and integrate a space-ready ver-

sion of the laser scanning technology into

Neptec s flagship product, the Space Vision

System (SVS), a key component in the assembly

of the International Space Station. In the summer

of 2001, SVS, guided by NRC s 3D laser scan-

ning system, successfully completed its first-ever

on-orbit testing aboard NASA s Space Shuttle.

For more information, visit the IIT web site at

iit-iti.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca or contact Dr. George

Forester at (613) 993-3478 and

[email protected].

HIGHLIGHT 80IIT’s 3D technology goes

Hollywood — again

NRC’s Information and CommunicationsTechnologies Group

Dr. AndrewWoodsworth, Director

General of IIT

Dr. Marie D’lorioActing DirectorGeneral of IMS

This column is part of a continuing series highlighting ICT achievements and activities.

“64k should be enough for anybody.”“There will be something approaching 15,000 computers in Canada by the year 2000.”Two quotes from the past trying to predict the future.The first one is now infamous and is attributed to Microsoft’s Bill Gates back in 1984, although it’s in the realms of

urban legend as to whether he actually did say it or not.The second prediction is from a speech Bill Hutchison gave to the Chartered Institute of Secretaries in London, Ont.

way back in 1968, and which he highlighted in a very entertaining and informative talk recently at SMART Toronto’sAnnual Innovator’s Dinner.

Hutchison is an information technology pioneer who co-founded SMART Toronto, CANARIE, Precarn andnumerous other technology and innovation initiatives across Canada—but even he admitted some of his predictionswere off the mark!

A Statistics Canada paper entitled A Profile of Employment in Computer and Telecommunications Industries men-tions that this sector has streaked ahead in the last decade. Here’s a couple of stats to ponder as you read your morn-ing e-mail, use your cellphone or fax that important document—all staples of everyday life now:

- Over the course of the Paper’s 1990-2002 reference period, computer and telecommunications (CT) industryemployment increased by 66 per cent—four times that of the rest of the economy;

- In 2002, the CT industries had 596,000 employees working in them.And the sector is certainly not shy in coming forward with the facts and figures. Analysis by Canada NewsWire’s

(CNW) Earnings Division found that 67 per cent of the telecoms sector reported an income statement, balance sheet,cash flow statement, notes to the financial statements and Management Discussion and Analysis in their Q4 2002 earn-ings news releases.

“The sector is responding to the need for greater transparency by proactively pursuing enhanced quarterly report-ing practices,” says Eva Spanoyannis, editor of CNW’s Earning Division.

Keeping up with all this technological advancement is the core motive for what we do at Silicon Valley NORTH.Being the conduit for news and information in the Canadian technology arena is hard work, as things are changing allthe time. The latest wireless developments... increases in broadband applications... searching for the next killer appli-cation. It’s exciting to keep pace, while at the same time, looking to the future and striving to predict what’s aroundthe corner.

If the last 10 years are anything to go by, it will be a wild ride.So, what do you predict? I am interested to hear your forecasts as to what’s in store for the Canadian tech scene over

the next decade, in whatever sector you happen to be working in. Telecoms, new media and biotech are just a few wecover. Send them to me and I’ll print the best.

The two innovators at the top of the page stuck their neck out.Now its your turn.

John CarsonEditor

Back to the future

Silicon Valley NORTH • 3June 2003

Genetics to receive up to$2.5 million from AVAC

CALGARY, AB—SemBioSys Genetics Inc., Calgary willreceive up to $2.5 million in funding from AVAC Ltd.,Calgary which will be used to complete development ofSemBioSys’ StratoCapture Protein A Purification System.SemBioSys claims its research has the potential to signifi-cantly alter the cost structure for purification of antibod-ies, which could result in their wider application for med-ical and health products. The company says ultimately thistechnology could turn specialized crops into efficientindustrial pharma-factories.This is the second investment AVAC has made inSemBioSys. AVAC’s first investment, in June 2000, sup-ported the development of SemBioSys’ antibody program.

Award for Most Outstanding Woman inHigh Tech goes to MSN.CA employee

MISSISSAUGA, ON—GerriSinclair, general manager,Mississauga-based MSN.CA isthe 2003 recipient of the SaraKirke Award for Canada’sLeading Woman High TechEntrepreneur, announced JohnReid, president of the CanadianAdvanced Technology Alliance(CATA), Ottawa.

“[Gerri] Sinclair is a true innovator and entrepreneur andshe serves as a great example to others,” says Reid. “Herextensive experience and leadership combined with astrong background in technology makes her a naturalchoice for this year’s Sara Kirke Award.”“I am truly honoured to receive the Sara Kirke Award fromboth a personal and business standpoint,” says Sinclair.“Sara Kirke is the true pioneer for woman entrepreneursin Canada and it is a real privilege to be considered andrecognized in this category.”Prior to joining Microsoft Canada, Sinclair was presidentof the BC Premier’s Technology Council, established toadvise Premier Gordon Campbell on all matters related totechnology in the province.The Sara Kirke Award is a national competition, whichwas created by CATA in 2001 and is accompanied by a$5,000 donation (in the recipient’s name) from CATA tothe Heart and Stroke Foundation.

CATAAlliance releases Canada’sAdvanced Technology Business Plan

OTTAWA, ON—CATA, Ottawa, in association withKPMG, Toronto, presented Industry Minister Allan Rockwith Canada’s Advanced Technology Business Plan. This isan in-depth strategy designed to jump-start innovation inCanada by outlining specific actions to grow the use ofhigh technology throughout communities in the comingyears. The action plan is the result of a series of 10 townhall meetings that were held across Canada fromSeptember 2001-March 2003.“The proposed action plan is practical and can provide thetangible results needed to reinvigorate high tech develop-ment in Canada,” says John Reid, president, CATA. “Wehope that the feedback gathered through the town hallprocess will help the government shape Canada’s federalprograms and Innovation Strategy.”While each city has its own unique challenges, some com-mon themes emerged as issues that can and must be

addressed at the national level. These centre on R&D, con-nectivity, innovation, human resources, capital and infra-structure“Access to financing was cited as one of the most commonchallenges identified by the business communitiesthroughout the town hall series,” says Peter Doyle, nation-al industry leader for KPMG’s information, communica-tions and entertainment practice in Toronto. “If we are tocontinue to foster and sustain future growth, we need toeither encourage investment from the traditional sourcesof financing or come up with new and creative ways ofobtaining start-up capital from non-traditional sources.”A full copy of Canada’s Advanced Technology BusinessPlan is available at www.cata.ca/townhall/agenda.

Chemist’s work with bees honoured

BURNABY, BC—Simon Fraser University (SFU) chemistKeith Slessor’s dedication to decoding how bees commu-nicate, and developing groundbreaking compounds basedon that knowledge, have led to him being awarded a 2003Career Achievement Award. The award is one of twobestowed annually by the Confederation of UniversityFaculty Associations of BC for exceptional research thatcontributes to the wider community. The CareerAchievement Award recognizes ongoing accomplishmentsin a researcher’s career that impact the non-academiccommunity.Slessor clarified the chemicals that bees and other insectsuse to communicate. That led him and other SFUresearchers to develop synthetic insect pheromones, whichare used in products that enhance or confuse insect com-munication. These products have become crucial, envi-ronmentally friendly ways of controlling insects, particu-larly in forests, and enhancing crop production.

Online tutorial helps small businessowners throughout BC adopt

Internet technologyVANCOUVER, BC—Vancouver-basedeBusiness Connection (eBC) in partner-ship with Western EconomicDiversification and the Canada/BCBusiness Services Society, Vancouver,has unveiled an online tutorial to intro-duce e-business concepts to small busi-ness owners.“In this province, small and medium

sized enterprises account for 98 per cent of all business, yethave been the slowest to adapt to technological change andadopt e-business solutions,” says Rob Lewis, eBC’s projectdirector. “Through this interactive Web-based tutorial,small business owners—regardless of where they reside inBC—can learn how their organizations can gain a com-petitive advantage from adopting simple Internet tech-nologies.”The eBC e-business tutorial can be found at www.e-bc.caor www.smallbusinessbc.ca.

Study shows promise for the future ofBC’s digital media industry

VANCOUVER, BC—New Media BC, Vancouver, hasreleased the preliminary results of its study on the digitalmedia industry in BC. The initial findings paint a promis-ing picture.“The goal of this study was to assist in generating contin-ued interest in BC as a centre of new media innovation,”

says Jane Green, executive director of New Media BC.“This industry is poised for growth.”New Media BC interviewed over 250 companies through-out BC via an online survey during Feb. and March, 2003.Key preliminary findings include:- Almost one in two companies (46 per cent) expects agrowth rate of more than 25 per cent from 2002 to 2003;- Eighty-two per cent indicated that their core businessinvolves the development of digital content;- Business, entertainment and education verticals wereidentified as the three largest vertical markets that newmedia companies target, at 70 per cent, 46 per cent and 49per cent respectively.

Wind energy agreement completed,results in a new Quebec research facility

MONTREAL, QC—AAER SystemsInc., Montreal, has completed a majoragreement in the field of wind energywith Neumarkt, Germany-based firmPfleiderer.“The first phase of this agreement willallow AAER Systems to distribute aproven technology, while the secondphase will enable it to produce high

capacity wind turbines,” says Dave Gagnon, president ofAAER.This transaction will result in a multi-million dollarinvestment to set up two plants and a research centre inQuebec starting in the beginning of 2004.The second phase will involve the transfer of technologyfor three models of wind turbines for which AAERSystems will hold exclusive rights in the Americas.

US army announces venturecapital initiative

MAITLAND, FLA—The US army has announced itsVenture Capital Initiative (VCI) to satisfy a critical armytechnology requirement of obtaining lighter, more effi-cient power sources for individual soldier systems.“Power and energy technologies are an opportune area forarmy investment, particularly because the army’s interestsparallel those fuelling the commercial market,” says A.Michael Andrews, army chief scientist.The goal of the VCI is to jump-start promising technolo-gies in the area of portable power and energy, to lightensoldiers’ loads as they operate worldwide, often in extremeenvironments and under austere conditions. It will focusits investment activities on innovative technology compa-nies, including those that may not normally do businesswith the army.“Finding new energy sources for soldiers is akin to a searchfor better power solutions for handheld computers likePalmPilots, BlackBerries, personal digital assistants andcellphones,” says Andrews. “Lighter and smaller is better.”The VCI will be managed by a non-profit corporationcalled OnPoint Technologies, Inc., of Maitland, Fla., andwill be modelled on the CIA’s venture capital initiative, In-Q-Tel. Funds will be provided from basic research andapplied research accounts.

Got a news [email protected]

CORRECTIONThe photo caption on page eight in Western Canada’s May editionshould read “Angus Livingstone, the managing director for the UBCUILO.” We regret the error.

Gerri Sinclair

Dave Gagnon

Rob Lewis


To all those who participated in the BMO Nesbitt Burns “Future of Television”

Conference on April 29th, thank you. You made it a great success.

ATI Technologies Inc. • CHUM Television • Gennum Corporation

Leitch Technology Corporation • Miranda Technologies • MTS Communications Inc.

Rogers Cable Inc. • Samsung • Zarlink Semiconductor

When the giants of the television industry gettogether, you can count on a great reception.

A member of BMO Financial Group

® “BMO (M-bar roundel symbol)” is a registered trade-mark of Bank of Montreal, and “Nesbitt Burns” is a registeredtrade-mark of BMO Nesbitt Burns Corporation Limited, used under licence. ™ “Innovative Thinking. IntegratedSolutions.” is a trade-mark of Bank of Montreal, used under licence. Member CIPF.

By Charles Mandel

The complexities of the connectedworkplace emerged as one of themain themes at Informatics 2003,

the annual Canadian InformationProcessing Society’s Conference inCharlottetown, PEI in May.

An audience of about 200 people lis-tened to keynote speaker Gordon Sissons,vice-president, products and technologieswith Sun Microsystems, describe how thatcompany was using technology to cut costsin the wake of the dot-com collapse.

To save money on real estate, the com-pany instigated an aggressive campaign ofhotelling for its employees. Dubbed“IWork,” Sun’s internal strategy is basedaround the idea of “pervasive computing.”

Many Sun employees, for instance, nowuse unassigned cubicles equipped withthin clients—networked computers. Byemploying 25,000 of the thin clientsthroughout the corporation, Sun savedapproximately $1,970 per desktop and $40million in power costs. The thin client sys-tem also uses smart cards, so users can login and work from any desk. Eighty-seven

shared field offices worldwide resulted inanother $53 million in real estate savings.

However, Sissons says the new systemrequires some adjustments on the parts ofthe employees. For example, in a time ofSARS, employees are expected to wipedown their workspace, including tele-phone and computer keyboards, after

they’re finished with it.Interestingly enough, Sun had tried

hotelling before, but it didn’t work. Thistime the corporation took into accounthuman factors as the key design point, pay-ing attention to people’s differences.Changes were as simple as providing someoffices with left-handed computer mice.

Brian MacDonald’s presentation on

ubiquitous wireless computing stood insharp contrast to Sissons’ talk. MacDonald,an IT architect with IBM Canada, showedthat despite all the hype the wireless revo-lution still has yet to happen.

Riddled with bandwidth and securityproblems, most of the wireless formatshave yet to live up to their promises. The

expense of physical infrastructure and thecost of spectrum auctions have hamperedthe rise of area networks such as 3G, whilewireless application protocols still facesecurity issues.

What’s on the way? MacDonald predictsBluetooth-enabled devices are coming andthat the price for them is decreasing. Also,smart barcodes that can be read by radio

waves will be used for asset management inretail and other areas.

Telecom companies are also working toenhance services to mobile devices, mostlythrough technologies such as global posi-tioning satellites, which will help find serv-ices important to the customer. They aredoing that to increase average revenue percustomer and to cut down on “churn,’’ orthe loss of consumers to other companies—a current and constant problem, saysMacDonald.

“Security problems can happen to any-one and come from anywhere,” says TomKeenan, Dean, University of Calgary,Faculty of Continuing Education, in hisspeech.

In one of the more packed sessions at theconference, Keenan drew up a list of “crimesof the future.” They included viruses thatwould be less detectable on your computerbut that would affect other people’s; andnumerous types of information manipula-tion, such as the cross-correlation of your e-mails to discover personal information.

SVNGot an opinion on this story?

[email protected]

Sharp contrast in Sun and IBM’swireless views

“Security problems can happen to any-one and come from anywhere.”Tom KeenanDean, University of Calgary, Faculty of Continuing Education

A Brit’s Eye View (March 2003)

I felt compelled to respond to the editorial you wrote about the “No CanadianExperience” barrier. It seems like this is what most Brits have to go through whenthey get here. My many years of experience suddenly became “relevant” when Iattained a Canadian certificate, and then, this was for a subject not related to whatI had been doing.What can we do about this purely attitudinal barrier that companies put up? Thegovernment is worried about a skills shortage and that people are leaving BC. Yet,we have companies that are insisting on Canadian experience and who are unwill-ing to employ newly-landed immigrants, no matter how qualified.I think this is a symptom of the more general problem of conservatism.Right now, we’re facing very tough times in the technological sector and the mediahas a role to play in helping to shift attitudes and bringing about more positivechanges. Once everyone loses their “wait and see” mentality and commits to doingbusiness, the economy can move up a gear. Too many companies, especially thesmaller ones are putting everything on hold.Worse, some are making do with inferior products and services, simply becausethey’re cheap. This is like an upside-down evolution where increasingly lower stan-dards are becoming acceptable.

Alexandra AmeliOnline Thinking Strategies Inc.

Port Moody, BC

We welcome letters from readers on articles appearing in Silicon Valley NORTH.Please send them to [email protected] for the attention of the editorand include a full name, address and telephone number. We reserve the right to edit letters.

By Tom Venetis

In a move to capture a larger piece of theNorth American-wide US$7.5 billionoffice business market, Xerox Corp.

recently announced a new set of marketingdirections, products and services.

Xerox chairman and CEO AnneMulcahy told a capacity crowd of industryanalysts, customers and international jour-nalists that Xerox was moving towardsfocusing on a larger segment of the officecopy, printing and service market, movingaway from just concentrating on the higherend and now aggressively targeting thesmaller and mid-sized office businesses.

“For the first time, we’re unveiling awhole new approach that will make Xeroxmore affordable and more relevant to morecustomers,” says Mulcahy. “Until today, weserved about half of the market with high-er priced, fully featured multifunction sys-tems and services aimed at big businesses.Now we’ve dramatically expanded our lineto address the other half of the market.”

The shift is an indication that Xerox isstarting to move away from its earlier cost-cutting mode where it had let go thousandsof employees and outsourced many of itsmanufacturing operations, and trying toregain the market share it had lost duringits struggle for profitability and fixing itsbottom line.

At the event, Xerox unveiled 21 new andenhanced products, from nine new digitalcopiers to a set of basic stand-alone multi-function print and copying solutions. Keyto Xerox’s plans to secure market shareagainst such competitors as Hewlett-Packard and Lexmark is the announcementthat Xerox’s stand-alone WorkCentre mul-tifunction systems will be bundled with anarray of high-end features but priced muchmore affordably thereby making themattractive to smaller businesses.

Ken Weilerstein, research director withGartner Research in Stamford, CT said thatXerox’s WorkCentre products were a goodmove on the part of the company as it hadearlier neglected the fact that there werestill many companies that wanted non-net-worked multifunction solutions, and notthe more expensive networked multifunc-tion systems Xerox previously only offered.As well, these stand-alone units would alsobe able to transition companies to net-worked multifunction products in thefuture which is where the overall multi-function market is heading.

Doug Lord, Xerox Canada’s presidentand CEO adds while the announcementwas a significant one for Xerox’s overallworldwide operations, the Canadian divi-sion is in fact already at the top of the offi-cer printer and copying market in Canada.What the announcement will do is offeradditional services that Xerox Canada cannow offer to Canadian customers such asthe Office Document Assessment service

that should allow companies to savebetween 20 to 40 per cent in printing costsby rationalizing the management andprinting work.


[email protected]

By John Carson

Areport released in May byToronto-based venture capitalanalysts Macdonald & Associates

and the Canadian Venture CapitalAssociation says that Canadian venturecapital activity resumed at a slower pacein Q1 2003, after the “significant spike”of Q4 2002.

From January-March, 2003 the indus-try disbursed $305 million, down by 60per cent from $754 million three monthsprior. This was down by a comparablelevel from the $758 million of the samefirst quarter period in 2002, reflectingone of the lowest rates of activity since1998.

“The Canadian industry is still faringbetter than the industry in the UnitedStates, where disbursements totalingUS$3.8 billion in the first quarter now

approach levels last seen in 1997, andwhere the number of American compa-nies financed has hit a six-year low,” saysthe report.

The report partly attributes the lowCanadian activity to world events, suchas the recent second Gulf War, and aneconomic climate that remains highlyuncertain.

“The phenomenon of a steep declinein disbursement streams, matched by astill steady volume of venture-backedfirms, points to the absence of manylarge, dollar-intensive transactions—ormega-deals—between January-March,”says the report. “To illustrate, in Q1 2003the 10 largest company financings cap-tured 32 per cent of capital invested intotal, while in Q1 2002, the top 10 con-sumed 57 per cent.”

The amount invested per companydropped sharply too, which in Q1 2003averaged $1.4 million as compared to$2.9 million in Q4 2002. The report says,“The average company infusion in Q12003 is one of the smallest in severalyears.

“Clearly, as Canadian venture profes-sionals are stalled by a continuing inabil-ity to liquidate portfolio holdings in IPOand M&A markets, they are also becom-

ing more conservative in their habits,which includes putting out less money inthe short term.”

“Further testimony to Canadianindustry conservatism was witnessed inthe ongoing preference for follow-ontransaction which consumed 72 per centof dollars invested in aggregate—sug-gesting that the cash squeeze affectingnew deal activity will persist in the fore-seeable future,” predicts the report.

Life sciences held up reasonably well,with $72 million going to 42 companiesin Q1 2003, but this still is well downfrom the $158 million that 49 companiesreceived in the last three months of 2002.

However, it should be noted that Q12003 activity for life sciences is approxi-mately the same as the first quarter peri-od of last year. Life sciences captured 26per cent of all industry disbursements,up from 19 per cent in 2002.

The report highlights the fact thatseed, start-up and other early-stagetransactions have dominated theCanadian industry landscape for twoyears now, and remained “very much inevidence” in the first three months of2003. Of the 212 venture-backed compa-nies in total in Q1 2003, 61 per cent werein the early-stage development arena,and these captured 55 per cent of indus-try capital flows.

As for regions, only $98 million wentto 53 Ontario-located companies, downby 80 per cent from the $498 million thatreached 101 firms in Q4 2002, whileOttawa-specific activity declined by 83per cent.

By contrast, Quebec led the industryin Canada according to all key indica-tors, with a 54 per cent share of total cap-ital invested, and a 52 per cent share ofall venture-backed firms.

Of the $305 million invested in Q12003, the amount by region was Quebec(54 per cent), Ontario (32 per cent),British Columbia (six per cent), Prairies(six per cent) and Atlantic (two percent).


[email protected]


Faculty Position in

Microjoining andMaterials Engineering

The Department of Mechanical Engineeringinvites applications for a tenure-track facul-ty position at the Assistant, Associate, orFull Professor rank in the area of microjoin-ing. Duties will include teaching of under-graduate and graduate courses in aCooperative Education Program, supervis-ing graduate students, and undertaking anactive research program. Research experi-ence in materials joining, surface engineer-ing, or closely related areas is required.Strength in microelectronics, MEMS andoptoelectronics packaging, as well as micro-fabrication and/or nanofabrication would bean asset. Applicants must hold a PhD inMaterials Science and Engineering, or aclosely related field, and have potential orproven ability for excellence in research,teaching and communication skills. It isanticipated that the appointment will beginas soon as possible. All qualified individu-als, including women, members of visibleminorities, native peoples, and peoples withdisabilities, are encouraged to apply; how-ever, Canadian citizens and permanent resi-dents will be given priority. For a detaileddescription of job requirements and applica-tion procedures, please visithttp://www.me.uwaterloo.ca.

Xerox launches new businessstrategy to capture market share

Anne Mulcahy, chairman and CEO,Xerox.

Canadian venture capitalactivity sluggish in first

quarter of 2003

“The Canadian industry is stillfaring better than the industryin the United States.”

By Greg Hughes

The cellphone industry in Canada ison the cusp of a great technologicaland economic leap forward.

Smart Messaging Service (SMS) is aboutto catch up to the European and Asianstandard as an affordable, commercialcommunications service in Canada.

According to the Canadian WirelessTelecommunications Association(CWTA), Ottawa, the launch of inter-car-rier text messaging services in April 2002allows for all cellular customers accessacross all mobile telecommunications net-works. Moreover, the advent of inter-carri-er text messaging is leading the way forcommon (universal) short codes, whichwill be activated across all operators’ net-works. Common short codes refer to thenumbers a text message can be sent to.

SMS is a cheap and easy way to gatherrevenue for cellphone companies.Transmission of text versus voice benefitsboth consumers (who may be charged only10 cents per message) and companies(greater revenues due to less networkresources being used through the air-waves).

Marc Choma, spokesperson for theCWTA, says that the inter-carrier barrierswere broken in April 2002 due to consoli-dation of cellular communication formatsavailable in North America.

“It all goes back to technology,” saysChoma. “In Europe and Asia, all cellularcarriers are on the Global System forMobile Communications (GSM) format.In Canada we weredealing with severalf o r m a t s — T i m eDivision MultipleAccess, GSM—andthese technologieswere not compatiblewith each other fortext messaging. It wasa year’s worth of workto provide the gatewayfor inter-carrier SMS.”

Since the breakingof the technological barrier, the expansionof text services on cellphones represents amassive change in the nature of mobiletelecommunications. Vishnu Singh, seniormarketing manager for Ericsson CanadaInc., Mississauga, believes SMS is a big steptowards broader operability.

“Once the inter-carrier barrier wasremoved in April 2002, we now see SMS asthe door-opener that’s going to shift thebehaviour of cell users from a voice-entrydevice to more of a communications devicewhere there is a visual perspective. Inter-operability is key.”

A Canadian market survey completed inApril of this year by Ericsson Canada and

Ericsson ConsumerLab, working withStarch Research, a mar-ket research firm basedin Toronto, indicatesthat SMS has stronggrowth potential.

The survey revealedthat 56 per cent ofCanadians own a wire-less handset, andgrowth in theCanadian market will

be facilitated at least in part by the com-mercial adoption of SMS.

Today, four per cent of Canadian wire-less phone users report sending or receivingtext messages once a day or more. Sixty-nine per cent of SMS users respond to a textmessage with another text message or aphone call, and another 11 per cent doboth.

“SMS is discreet and personal,” saysSingh. “When you look at the nature ofSMS, you can read and respond in privacywithout disruption. What’s interestingabout the Canadian market is that it’s adynamic market. In terms of new services,SMS is key, for when we ask about the newmobile services like mobile parking—forexample when you use your cellphone topay for parking—it’s a unique application.In terms of new services, SMS is very inter-esting for the market.”

The potential benefit to both cellularcarriers and companies in competition forconsumer dollars is vast.

For example, the study of teens and theircellphone buying habits in July 2002 byToronto-based Reactorz Research indicatedthat 65 per cent of youth between the agesof 18 and 22 already own a cellphone.

The study’s findings also indicated thatthose who have SMS technology on theirphones either “love it or don’t use it,” andthe latter group merely hasn’t been able tofigure out the technology.

More importantly, since the establish-ment of these common formats across cel-lular carriers, the CWTA has estimated thatin December 2002 alone, Canadians sentmore than 21 million mobile-to-mobiletext messages.

Yet what does this mean for a companyinterested in getting its message across tothe average SMS user?

Some of the hottest new wireless servic-es in Canada will be more than just adver-tising for new products. According toEricsson Consumer Labs, emergency loca-tion services, safety alerts, positioning-based services, caller-ID with photos,friend locators and financial transactionssuch as electronic wallets will becomeessential as broader cross-format technolo-gies are used by cell companies.

Choma also sees a myriad of opportuni-ties for companies to interact with theirclients, both instantly and cheaply.

“With common short codes, you canhave interactive contests, for example,” hesays. “The same applications are used withshows like American Idol which involvedonly one carrier—AT&T wireless in the US.But the introduction of common shortcodes means that all of these applicationsare available to all cellphone users inCanada.”

Yet is there a risk this form of cellularcommunications could turn into mass,sometimes unwanted advertising? Chomasays that unlike e-mail, text messaging isregulated by the CWTA and all cellular car-riers in Canada—thus rendering the possi-bility of mass advertising on text far lesslikely.

“The CWTA is acting as the short codeadministrator for Canada,” he says. “Thereis a very strict code of conduct that anycompany requesting a short code wouldhave to sign a contract with the CWTA andall the carriers. We have control over theshort codes, which means we have to becontacted before taking part in major con-tests or whatever kind of application it maybe.”

With a market nowhere near saturationlevels, SMS represents a national telecom-munications strategy with tremendousgrowth potential. The shift from voice serv-ices to text messaging is in its infancy inCanada, yet remains a new form of interac-tivity likely to be adopted to the levels ofEuropean and Asian markets in the future.


[email protected]


e-newsSVN

To register for our free newsletter,please send an e-mail to

[email protected]

Sign up today for ourfree newsletter.Important technologynews and informationstraight to your inbox.

Text messaging:Persuasive or pervasive?

Vishnu Singh, senior marketingmanager, Ericsson Canada Inc.

“We now see SMS asthe door-openerthat’s going to shiftthe behaviour of cellusers.”Vishnu SinghSenior marketing manager,Ericsson Canada Inc.

By J.P. Frozo

To some, the database looks half empty.For others, it’s half full. The smart ones justsee opportunity.

Rony Ross, executive chairman andfounder of Panorama Software Systems,doesn’t see her lack of a Y chromosome as ahindrance in the high tech industry. In heropinion, women have many advantagesover their male counterparts in the businessworld.

“There are some great advantages forwomen as integrators and motivators,” saysRoss, who has just moved the company’soperations from Israel to Toronto and hiredformer Lucent Technologies executiveJanice Anderson as CEO.

“Success in today’s marketplace is not anindividual effort. It’s a team effort. Womenare great team players and great enablers ofteams. We know how to achieve results—not by opposing someone’s hand but byfinding a win-win situation.”

Ross enabled her team to become theIsraeli market leader in decision support,executive information systems and multidi-mensional databases when it launchedPanorama EIS in 1995 and found a win-win situation a year later when she soldPanorama’s Online Analytical Processing(OLAP) technologies to form the basis ofMicrosoft’s OLAP solutions.

Now, Panorama is riding the wave ofdemand for business intelligence solutionsthat information overload has created.

“Business intelligence has been aroundforever—paper files, databases,” explainsRoss. “Management’s need for informationto support decision-making is insatiable.”

The information is overwhelming: Howdo you store it, access it and comprehend it?

Panorama thinks it has the answer.Ross founded Panorama in Israel in

1993 after a development centre she wasrunning was closed. Faced with the deci-sion of either going back to work for some-one else again or starting her own business,she went for the latter option.

“I secured a small investment of$200,000,” says Ross, “and therefore I hadto make sure business was profitable. Iaveraged 12-hour days, six days a week.”

Working out of a small basement apart-ment in 1996, Ross and her team wereenjoying dominance in the Israeli market,but were busy looking for an internationalpartner. The company was already workingwith Microsoft Israel, and had decidedearly on to use Microsoft technology, sothe company seemed like a perfect partner.

But Microsoft was not so easy to con-vince—at first. At the time, Panorama onlyhad a simple marketing brochure that did-n’t convey the complexity of Panorama’sOLAP technology. Microsoft wanted moreinformation. But showing them how pow-erful the technology was meant divulgingproprietary information.

“We were reluctant to give Microsoftour confidential information and askedthem to sign a non-disclosure agreement,which they refused to do,” explains Ross.“But the fact is if they decided to enter ourmarket competitively then we didn’t have achance. So I decided to tell them.”

No reply was forthcoming until Rossand her team were “in the neighbourhood”of Microsoft’s head office to meet with aVancouver company. Microsoft finallyagreed to meet Panorama.

Panorama did its homework for thismeeting and prepared a three-hour pres-entation. When they got to the offices, theytook a photo beside the big Microsoft logoto use in their promotional material oncethey got back to Israel. Realistically, thatwas as far as their strategic thinking went.

“When we told them it would be threehours, they said not to be offended if somepeople left for other meetings,” says Ross.“Fourteen minutes went by, no one left.One hour, no one left. Three hours laterand everyone was still there. They asked usif we’d come back for another meeting.

“The next day, a young guy in jeanscame up to us and said, ‘You have an excel-lent product. Would you consider sellingus your company?’”

While everything Ross ever wantedflashed before her eyes with that proposi-tion, she was calm enough to decideagainst a full acquisition. Maintainingsome autonomy allowed Ross to continueto develop her technology in co-ordina-tion with the Microsoft platform.

And that’s paid off well, as Panorama’sNovaView e-BI Accelerator Client waslaunched alongside Microsoft’s SQLServer Accelerator for BI in the spring of2002. This symbiotic relationship appearsto be one that will continue to serve eachcompany well, since business intelligenceis a high-gross market, even in toughfinancial times.

“Business intelligence is more impor-tant than ever,” says Ross. “Previously, thepeople who analyzed information werefew. But now, more people inside and out-side the organization need access.”

In a struggling high tech industry wheremales dominate, Panorama seems to beriding high, with two women at the helm.Ross encourages other women to aim highand take risks, but feels women aren’t con-ditioned to think about their careers as aprovider for their families, even thoughthat often ends up being the case.

“Many women in our industry do notaim high enough,” she says. “Half of myundergraduate class was female. But youcan count on one hand how many becamesuccessful.

“I don’t go against my femininity oradopt the male behaviour model. I want tobe myself.”

Ross has been herself for over 25 yearsin this industry, and she remains as excit-ed about technology today as when shefirst realized people would pay you to playwith a machine.

Panorama’s recent move to Toronto toenjoy North American opportunities andease of travel has assured that excitementwill continue.

While the weather is still taking somegetting used to, Ross has no doubt aboutthe business decision to come to thiscountry.

“There’s a solid technological infra-structure and it’s easy to get in and out thecountry which is great for business travel.”


Billion dollar mergers and acquisitions in the IT sector havecreated a few large companies pursuing the IT outsourcingrequirements of mainly large clients.

Such service providers are not interested in medium andsmaller clients.

In the Commonwealth of Nations including Canada, India,Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan, United Kingdom, SouthAfrica and Australia, there are the greatest software devel-opment and outsourcing capabilities in the world at verycompetitive prices.

Canada is fortunate to be the Commonwealth’s IT bridge toNorth American businesses.

If you would like to share in this rich and untapped ITmarket, we can help you.

Just let us know.

Opportunities in IT Outsourcing

For more information, please contact:The Commonwealth Advantage, 730 Davis Drive, Suite 200

Newmarket, ON L3Y 2R4,Phone: 1-888-666-3821 or by email, [email protected]

RONY ROSSExecutive Chairman and Founder of Panorama Software Systems

Rony Ross, founder of Panorama Software Systems, doesn’t feel theneed to “adopt the male behaviour model.”

PH

OTO

BY:

Ste

phen

Uhr

aney


PH

OTO

BY:

Pat

rick

Boa

ke

By Patrick Boake

The stretch of St. George Streetbetween Bloor and College Streetsthat forms the western border of the

main University of Toronto campus hasseen many a novel idea in the 175 yearssince the university’s inception.

In the Nortel Institute forTelecommunications (NIT) labs housed inthe university’s Bahen Centre forInformation Technology, GeorgeEleftheriades has brought concepts firstproposed in 1968 into reality by construct-ing flat, electromagnetic lenses made fromso-called metamaterials. These lenses canbend and focus electromagnetic waves inways previously thought to be against thelaws of nature.

This breakthrough promises to signifi-cantly reduce the size and power consump-tion of electronic and optical devices byprocessing signals more precisely andenabling the manufacture of smaller com-ponents.

“A fundamental, groundbreaking aspectis that with such a lens, there is a possibili-ty of overcoming the diffraction limit. Thisis what limits the resolution of any opticalsystem. You cannot resolve the details ofanything smaller than the wavelength ofthe light used to examine it,” saysEleftheriades.

“In the microelec-tronics industry thesize of the circuits youcan print is limited bythe wavelength oflight. If you use ametamaterials pho-tolithographic systemyou can print featuresthat are spaced closertogether so compo-nents take up lessspace.”

“The lens is one aspect of the medium.You can make devices for RF circuits thatare used in cellphones and base stations.We are making several different types ofcomponents based on metamaterials,” hesays.

“These new devices really have someamazing properties. They are much morecompact and much more broadband. Theyalso offer functions you could not get oth-erwise.”

One of the functions Eleftheriades refersto is how the accuracy with which meta-material-enabled devices can process sig-

nals means multiple signals (from differentcoloured lasers) can be carried in onestrand of optical fibre multiplying the car-rying capacity.

John Sydor is a program manager withthe broadband wireless group of the feder-al government’s CommunicationsResearch Centre (CRC) in Ottawa wherehe helps develop new wireless and broad-band communications technologies.

“Metamaterials don’t exist in nature andthey exhibit properties that are sort ofunnatural,” says Sydor. “The antenna andelectronics industries are interested in it.It’s nice to see something new come alongand challenge conventional thinking.”

“Looking at some of the metamaterialsconcepts as an antenna designer, you startthinking about antennas with very low lev-els of interference,” says Sydor.“It would bejust delicious to have an antenna thatreceived a signal from only one directionand eliminated noise from every otherdirection.”

“If you can use these techniques toreduce the coupling between the elementsof a base station, for instance, you canimprove the overall performance of yoursystem. Base stations are the most impor-tant part of a cellular system because theyreally put a lot of money into them.”

Sydor suggests that if the interference isreduced enough, then you could conceiv-

ably carry more thanone signal on that fre-quency and make oneantenna cover a muchwider area. The cellu-lar service providerimmediately has morebandwidth from thesame infrastructure.

“If you are able toput an array antennain a cellphone that can

be directed towards a base station you justdecreased the size of your battery by 90 percent, and reduced the size of the base sta-tion, solving some of the installation prob-lems,” he says.

Sydor mentions taking the improve-ments into the IT arena where more effec-tive “steerable” antennas would increasethe coverage area of a wireless LAN.

The NIT was established in 1997 withthe aid of a financial commitment fromNortel Networks. With additional supportfrom federal and Ontario governments, itestablished research and educational pro-grams to explore new IT and telecommu-

nications technologies and to train newresearchers.

NIT is currently a cross-faculty unit ofthe University of Toronto that, in partner-ship with several private sector and gov-ernment organizations, provides facilitiesfor researchers to engage in large-scaleresearch in areas such as network architec-ture and optical, microwave and materialstechnologies.

The future of metamaterials is unknownas yet, but because Eleftheriades is alreadyturning out new devices using metamateri-als technology that are ready to be incor-porated into existing products, that futuremay not be that far off.

Finding someone to be specific aboutthe future is another matter. A request toNortel for an interview to interpret thebreakthrough and speculate on possibleuses was declined. Eleftheriades himselfwas not ready just yet to disclose muchbeyond the scientific principles involved.

Members of Eleftheriades’ group havebeen invited to give presentations at twoInternational Electrical and ElectronicsEngineers symposiums in June where theywill announce new metamaterial-enableddevices at the largest and most importantgatherings in the areas of RF/microwaveand antenna technologies.

The CRC’s Sydor was less circumspect.“If this works, you’re scratching the surfaceof a whole new technology. Most of thelaws of physics that antenna designers usehave been unchanged for close to 100years,” he says.

“Since Heinrich Hertz and Maxwellcame up with those equations not muchhas really changed. If this is an insight intonew phenomena then there’s an awful lotto be garnered from that. It could be revo-lutionary.”


[email protected]

New lens technologycould mean telecom

breakthroughAntenna and electronics industries interested in

the potential of revolutionary discovery

New lens technology discovered by George Eleftheriades can bend elec-tromagnetic waves in ways previously thought to be impossible.“If this works, you’re

scratching the sur-face of a whole newtechnology.”John SydorProgram manager,Communications Research Centre


By Adam Bello

Why fish for business in the samewaters as Telus and Bell Canadawhen you can find a new catch

in nearby ponds? Hooking businesses withits wireless delivery of broadband Internetaccess, TeraGo Networks Inc. finds nichesin suburban industrial parks and highwaystrips where wireline delivery of broad-band Internet is less available.

“We looked where there would be lesscompetition,” says Bryan Boyd, presidentand CEO. “If you try selling to tenant com-panies in downtown Toronto office build-ings there are usually two or three DSL orT1 carriers in the area. In the industrialparks, it’s a different story. Who is provid-ing high capacity Internet there inRichmond Hill, Markham, Vaughan orMississauga? Selection becomes fewer andfarther between.”

Moving corporate headquarters fromCalgary to Richmond Hill last year, TeraGois becoming Canada’s largest provider of“fixed” wireless service (in reference to thecustomers’ location being “fixed” and con-necting to the Internet through buildinginfrastructure, as opposed to mobileInternet delivery services over portable orhandheld devices). The telecommunica-tions company adds 60 new subscribers amonth to the 800 already gained in nineregions (Victoria, Kelowna, Calgary,Winnipeg, Barrie, St. Catharines, London,Windsor, and Greater Toronto) over threeyears.

Founded in 1999 by Dolphin EquityPartners, a New York-based venture capitalfirm specializing in emerging telecommu-nications and related technology compa-nies, TeraGo holds 70 frequency licenses inthe 24- and 38-GHz bands to conductoperations in British Columbia, Alberta,Manitoba and Ontario. It provides highcapacity Internet service for data transmis-sion at speeds ranging from 1.5 to 100 mil-lion bits per second, which Boyd says are45 times faster than DSL or up to 65 timesfaster than T1 lines.

While the technology’s track record hasbeen sound, fixed wireless’s commercialvalue has been fleeting, with earlyCanadian and American entrants—MaxLink, Teligent, ARTT and Winstaramong others—falling by the wayside.

“TeraGo was founded before the ‘techwreck’ economy or any of the US-basedfixed wireless companies flamed out,” saysTodd Marcy, senior associate, DolphinEquity Partners. “A lot of these broadbandservice providers raised more capital thanTeraGo but took the wrong approach,either in terms of access technology—DSLor fibre—or strictly focusing on the down-town core business areas of large cities.

“We wanted to address second tierCanadian markets, which were consider-ably less competitive. When Boyd and themanagement team came on board, they

refined the business plan further by target-ing the suburban industrial parks.”

Managing its own Metropolitan AreaNetwork (MAN), TeraGo uses radioequipment mounted on towers and build-ing rooftops at each customer’s location.Transmitting data by direct line-of-site,subscribers are connected to the MAN viacentral hubs,which form a ringor partial ringacross the city.Leased fibre linksare used at tworedundant loca-tions to connectwith Internetb a c k b o n eproviders, movingtraffic betweencities.

To avoid wasteful costs, the companyuses success-based deployment: First getthe customer, then spend on hardware.Why lay down cash to blanket an entirecity with infrastructure, when you can

“scotch tape” together a wireless networkone customer at a time, and still achievethe same results?

“We didn’t have to put up an inordinateamount of capital to get started. The ven-ture funding helped us develop infrastruc-ture, and customers keep it building,” saysBoyd.“We only spend as we go, keeping the

operation free ofdebt.”

M a i n t a i n i n ghealthy cash flowallowed the com-pany to follow itsagenda unhin-dered. Unlikemany technologystart-ups, TeraGoimplemented afully funded busi-

ness model in 2001, thanks to DolphinEquity raising $31.5 million in venturecapital, just ahead of the American techmeltdown. An additional $3 million wasraised through institutional investors, theOntario Municipal Employees Retirement

System and CIT Group, and labour-spon-sored venture capital corporationDynamic Ventures Opportunities Fund, alllocated in Toronto.

Boyd reckons the business model’s mer-its creates customer confidence.“Companies want to know you’ll bearound in the long-term. If your businesscase proves this, use it as a sales tool. Westep prospects through our plan to demon-strate profitability and competence todeliver,” he says.

Customer service efficiencies areincreased by placing technical support inits front lines. “When people call our IToperations in Calgary, they talk directly tonetwork certified engineers who know theequipment,” says Boyd. “Usually calls areabout their internal configurations, andspeeding up the remedy process developsbetter customer relations.”

Prospecting in the suburban businessparks combines niche building while pur-suing “anyone and everyone” within.Transportation, oil and gas, manufactur-ing, marketing and public relations andautomobile dealerships are amongTeraGo’s major clientele.

Application service providers (ASP),generally considered a dead market, isanother top area. “It’s a great fit,” saysBoyd. “Most think of the desktop varietyonly, but ASPs serving specific verticalmarkets need business-grade broadbandto deliver data to their entire clientele net-work.”

Marketing efforts combine direct mail,telemarketing, radio ads, and personalcontact. “Our sales team go door-to-doorin the industrial parks, even gaining per-mission from property managers to set updisplay booths in building lobbies. Thiscreates trade show-type presentationswithout the overhead costs. Plus, its helpspresent us to prospective customers as thesole option,” says Boyd.

Ian Angus, president of AngusTeleManagement Group Inc., an Ajax-based telecommunications consultingfirm, says while barriers to entering fixedwireless service are falling, companiesshould not lose sight of delivering data.

“Data is the critical business need,” hesays. “My concern is that companies willlose focus and offer more options, likevoice and video. The key is to offer one ortwo things and do them well. If you deliverwith reliability, quality and competitiveprice, you will be more likely to sell theservice.”

Boyd agrees. “We’re listening to cus-tomers’ interest for additional applications,but it’s more important to be excellent atdelivering data communication today,” hesays. “Once we’re well established in thismarket, it will make more sense to moveinto other areas.”


[email protected]

Fixed wireless finds niche in GTA’s industrial parks

Bryan Boyd, president and CEO of TeraGo Networks. The companyrefined its business plan by targeting the suburban industrial parks.

“We wanted to addresssecond tier Canadianmarkets, which wereconsiderably less com-petitive.”Todd MarcySenior associate, Dolphin Equity Partners

CEOs of fastest-growingtechnology companies remain

confident about growthprospects

TORONTO, ON—Despite a continuedglobal economic downturn, the CEOs ofNorth America’s fastest-growing technolo-gy companies remain confident their com-panies will maintain the record-highgrowth rates they have enjoyed over thepast five years. The results come from asurvey of CEOs whose companies werelisted on the 2002 Deloitte & ToucheTechnology Fast 500—a ranking of thefastest-growing companies in the US andCanada.

The survey of more than 200 CEOs,which included 16 chief executives ofCanadian companies, found that 59 percent are very or extremely confident theircompanies will maintain their high levelsof growth.

“While the overall economy continuesto struggle, North America’s fastest-grow-ing technology companies not only contin-ue to grow, but remain confident in theprospects for growth,” says Garry Foster,national director, technology, media andtelecommunications, Deloitte & Touche,Toronto. “These companies have demon-strated solid fundamentals and, as such,are weathering the current economicstorm. Obviously, this gives them greatercause for optimism.”

Burgess, Atkinson andRedknee win Leaf Initiative

Awards for CanadianInnovation

TORONTO, ON—SMART TorontoTechnology Alliance,a member-basedtechnology associa-tion for the GreaterToronto Area,awarded its LeafInitiative Awards for

Canadian Innovation at its AnnualInnovator’s Dinner in May.The winners are:

- Global Innovator Award: Rob Burgess,chief executive officer of Macromedia, forhis championing of Flash, now a householdname for the tech industry;- GTA Innovator Award: Redknee Inc., aToronto-based company helping to usher inthe 3G wireless era with its messaging, pay-ment and location-based applications;- Innovation Champion Award: WilliamIllsey Atkinson, author of Prototype, HowCanadian Innovation is Shaping the Future,which tells of his cross-Canada tour touncover Canadian innovators who are help-ing to build the future.“These Canadians are heroes in the world ofinnovation,” says Cindy Pearson, presidentof SMART Toronto.“From the proliferationof Flash to pushing the boundaries of wire-less services, we have absolutely no shortageof Canadian innovations to celebrate andapplaud.”The event featured a keynote speech by BillHutchison, the information technologypioneer who co-founded SMART Toronto,CANARIE, Precarn and numerous othertechnology and innovation initiatives acrossCanada.

Biotech funds invest $9.2 mil-lion in emerging Canadian

companies leading the curve

TORONTO, ON—Triax-Covington’s NewGeneration Biotech Funds has invested$9.2 million in eight Ontario-basedbiotechnology and health care companiespositioned to capitalize on the commer-cialization of their discoveries.

The investments were made by GenesysCapital Partners, Toronto, through theFunds’ partnership with the Toronto-basedDiscovery District Biotechnology Fundand the Ottawa-based OttawaBiotechnology Innovation Fund. Thesetwo community small-business investmentfunds were launched by the NewGeneration Biotech Funds in order toaccelerate the commercialization of health-care, life sciences and biomedical researchdiscoveries from Canada’s leading researchcommunities.

“Both Toronto and Ottawa are amongthe most productive biomedical researchcentres in North America,” says KellyHolman, co-founder and manager,Genesys Capital Partners, investment spe-cialists for the New Generation BiotechFunds. “You simply cannot be an investorin today’s competitive environment byreacting to business plans that come acrossyour desk. You need to be out there withthe researchers.”

The eight companies receiving financ-ing are:

Insception Biosciences Inc., InterfaceBiologics Inc., Matregen Corp. and YlektraInc., all in Toronto, and Ionalytics Corp.,Plexagen Diagnostics Ltd, ZelosTherapeutics Inc. and Stempath Inc., all inOttawa.


The challenge is open to all members of the Innovations Network. Please check the website for a list of net-

work members, Competition Updates and contact information.

Media Partner

USTWeb Technologies Inc. hasdeveloped and is marketing a uni-versal support tool for IT systems.This browser-based solution is atechnical support simplification,centralization and automation tool,allowing tech-support to manage allenterprise systems securely fromanywhere, at the network opera-tions center (NOC), data center, athome or on the road, via the inter-net or intranet.

USTWeb Technologies Inc.

StorageLight Technologies Inc. is aCanadian company that haschanged the way we think of datastorage. StorageLight has intro-duced a new concept calledPervasive and Evasive DataStorage powered by its PRISMEngine™ technology. This technolo-gy improves Data Security andAvailability while reducing the over-all Cost of Ownership.

StorageLight Technologies Inc.Based on patent pending proprietarytechnology, Sonic Mobility’s coretechnology, sonicframework, enablesthe delivery of multiple shrink-wrappedmobile business solutions for criticalreal-time system and device manage-ment. The flagship solution is soni-cadmin, a wireless remote manage-ment software utility that providesrapid, cost effective problem diagnos-tics, resolution of organization net-work, database, application and sys-tem security issues.

Sonic Mobility

A technology organization dedicat-ed to solving the electronic compli-ance issues faced by regulatedindustries, such as, the FDA’s Title21 CFR Part 11. Founded in 2001,SECT Inc. develops electronic sig-nature management tools forachieving compliance in regulatedorganizations.

SECT Inc.(Secure Electronic Compliance

Technologies)3DNA is a patent-pending 3D tech-nology platform that enhances thecomputing experience and inte-grates system, browser, media andportal functions. The 3DNADesktop improves the way youwork with Windows and the Web.3DNA works seamlessly with yourcurrent set up, while giving you amuch better way to use your com-puter.

3DNA

Florence Systems develops web-based Employee RelationshipManagement applications that sup-port and reinforce best managementpractices. The flagship product,eManager, is a web-based enter-prise application that helps peoplemanagers work more efficiently andeffectively to put good managementprinciples into practice, and improvetheir relationships with direct reports.Florence Systems can boost your“Return On People”

Florence Systems

The University of Toronto’s Innovations Foundation, in collaboration with its Innovations Network, is

pleased to announce the Finalists in the 4th Annual Innovations Challenge — A national business plan

competition for promising technology focused business opportunities. This year’s competition focus is

on Internet technology and wireless applications. The Finalists are:

The University of Toronto’s Innovations Foundation, in collaboration with its Innovations Network, is

pleased to announce the Finalists in the 4th Annual Innovations Challenge — A national business plan

competition for promising technology focused business opportunities. This year’s competition focus is

on internet technology and wireless applications. The Finalists are:

TH4 Annual Innovations Challenge - The Finalists

NEWS EXTRA

Rob Burgess


i-OnBusinessJune 2003

The Waterloo region’s technology community continues to make news and expe-rience growth. Read on to learn about local companies and their successes.

Intellitactics, Inc., the premier developer of enterprise security management soft-ware, today announced it has raised $6.8 million in Series D funding. The funding wasled by Lazard Technology Partners, a leading venture capital technology firm, and JMIEquity, which participated in the company’s previous funding.

Kevin Burns, managing partner of Lazard Technology Partners, has joined theIntellitactics Board of Directors. “Our firm is steeped in the dynamics of the securityspace and invested in Intellitactics due the superiority of its technology and thestrength of its senior management team,” said Mr. Burns. “Intellitactics is the strategiclynch pin required to take customers to the next level of proactive security manage-ment.” For more information visit www.intellitactics.com.

Bioinformatics Solutions Inc. (BSI), a software company that depends on sophisti-cated mathematical and algorithmic analysis to provide bioinformatics solutions to thepharmaceutical and biotech inductry. BSI founders Ming Li and Bin Ma’s penchant forgenome classification and their ensuing research in the area has led to a featuredreport in the June issue of Scientific American. The study, titled “Chain Letters andEvolutionary Histories,” shows how a new algorithm can be useful in inferring thefamily tree of anything that evolves over time, including chain letters, biologicalgenomes (genetic material of organisms), languages and even plagiarized papers.Read the featured article by visiting www.sciam.com. For more information about BSIvisit www.bioinformaticssolutions.com.

Communitech Community Insights

ACE Laurier made a tremendous showing at Canada’s Campus Enterprise ChallengeAwards. The Campus Enterprise Challenge allows student teams from over 45 universi-ties and colleges across Canada to compete for national awards, recognition andprizes based on their projects guided by the three ACE (Advancing CanadianEntrepreneurship) Campus Programs - Ventures, SIFE and Fair Enterprise.

The Most Enterprising Campus in Canada

Student in Free Enterprise (SIFE) National Champions - Dave Hanley, NicoleMarchand, Kyle Marancos, Nicole Almond, Ashley Grier, Jeff Chu-tech support

1st runner up - Magna International Fair Enterprise National ChampionCompetition - Adam Barnard, Morgan Wellens, Jessica Kim, Donna Morin,Ashley Yantzi, Amanda Christian-tech support

2nd runner up - Ventures National Champion Competition - Mat Seidler,Nik Handa, Jeff Chu, Dave Tran, Mike Huber, Amanda Christian-tech support

CIBC Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award - Oliver Towstiak-Davis

Faculty Advisor of the Year - Steve Farlow

ACE Student Leader of the Year Award - Dave Hanley

ACE Laurier was also recognized as The Most Enterprising Campus in Canada.According to Steve Farlow, “That’s the BIG award, the team award, based on theteam’s success in all of the other categories.” For more informationvisit www.acelaurier.ca.

Communitech Emerging Business of the Month

Emerest Mobile, Inc. recently introduced it’s first product, TopLEAD, in WashingtonDC. TopLEAD captures leads from new sellers looking for an agent on the Web or bye-mail as well as new buyers looking for a property listing and delivers the leads,instantly and in real time, to out-of-office agents.

TopLEAD consolidates e-mails from the multiple non-proprietary e-mail accounts ofthe agent, and only delivers leads to the e-mail address on the agent’s cell phone orwireless PDA. It’s a simple, low-cost solution that promises to give real estate agentsthe ability to service potential and existing customers with greater easy and efficiency. The solution is particularly applicable in the U.S. real estate market given that mostleads are received directly from the Internet. “Agents have to respond to leads beinggenerated from any of their Web sites (real estate industry, brokers, real estateboards, individual agents, etc.) instantly, and in real time in order to be competitive,”explains Dr. Graham Mitchell, Co-founder of Emerest Mobile, Inc.

Emerest Mobile continues to build on its experience to create a family of customer-focused subscription businesses in the fields of real estate, health care, construction,property management and insurance. For more information visit www.emerest.com.

Serving the c it ies of Cambridge, Guelph, Kitchener, and Waterloo

Communitech Technology Association“The voice of technology in the Waterloo region”

www.communitech.org435 King Street North, Suite 100

Waterloo, ON N2J 2Z5(519) 888-9944

The recent rise in the value of theCanadian dollar relative to the US dollar isnow causing some consternation forCanadian high tech companies becausenearly all of their products and serviceseither go to the United States or are pricedin US dollars. While it is true that the USdollar has been falling relative to mostworld currencies lately, the fact is that theCanadian dollar should never have beenallowed to get so out of line with the USdollar during the past 30 years. We shouldseize upon this opportunity to get it back onpar and keep it there.

One of the reasons for the weakness hasbeen that our leaders can’t seem to agree onwhether they want a strong or weak curren-cy. In 1998, when our prime minister was

on a trade mission to South America, hewas asked to comment on a sharp drop inthe Canadian dollar that had just occurredand he said,“I don’t hear any of the businesspeople on this trip complaining about it.”

This would sound like an endorsementof a weak dollar. Meanwhile, back home hiscabinet colleagues were sending out signalsthat they did not like it. They blamed it onthe “young money traders in New York andChicago dressed in red suspenders.”

They still can’t agree on it. An article inthe May 9 issue of the National Post quotesTrade Minister Pierre Pettigrew as being infavour of a stronger dollar because it willallow Canadian companies to buy technol-ogy from the United States to increase theirproductivity.

It is particularly discouraging to see ourleaders trying to blame our so-called “pro-ductivity gap” on a lack of technology inour production apparatus. Our reducedproductivity is due more to transfer pricingbetween the Canadian subsidiaries of for-eign companies and their parents than toour inability to make a given widget as effi-ciently as it can be made elsewhere.

Parent companies tend to leave theirprofits in tax haven countries or in theirhome countries and with over 50 per cent ofour manufacturing output now comingfrom foreign-owned (mostly US) plants, itis naïve for us to believe that we are gettingtop dollar for the output from those plants.

Our politicians and bureaucrats who arecontinuously scolding Canadians for theirpoor productivity must understand that

productivity is defined as the price we getfor a product divided by the cost of produc-ing it. They are fixated on the cost of pro-ducing it but not on transfer pricing.

In the longer term, a stronger Canadiandollar can only help the Canadian high techindustry.

At the present time, Canadian companiesare heavily dependent on third parties toget their message across in the US and thesechannels are simply not as effective in doingso as a direct sales force is. US trade showshave become a luxury that few Canadiancompanies can afford. Also, most materialsthat go into the cost of goods sold (e.g.semiconductors) are priced in US dollarsand these can now be expected to go downin price.

Instead of sitting back and waffling abouttheir positions on the Canadian dollar, ourleaders should be cheering it on and theyshould not stop cheering until it reaches apar with the US dollar. They should makeup their minds that they will fix our pro-ductivity problem by re-jigging our finan-cial industry so that it knows how to own

more of our manufacturing facilities, par-ticularly the tech-intensive ones.

Very high on leaders’ priority lists shouldbe the creation of a public stock exchangesystem that provides liquidity for the peoplewho fund early stage high tech companiesso that they have an exit alternative to sell-ing out, lock, stock and barrel to foreigninvestors. A stronger Canadian dollar willbenefit Canadian stocks in general.

While there is no doubt that a lowCanadian dollar helps exporters of all types,it should be remembered that our importsfrom the US are almost equal to our exportsto that country, and both are very high—about $400 billion per year. With a low dol-lar, we have been paying the equivalent of a50 per cent duty on that figure. And ofcourse, most of our commodities like oiland gas are in US dollars and this puts upthe cost of everything from air fares tohome heating bills.

If any politician were to run on a plat-form to impose a 50 per cent duty on USimports, he or she would never have a hopeof being elected, yet collectively, they haveallowed precisely that to happen. We haveto find other ways of being competitive inour exporting capacity no matter howpainful they turn out to be.

Denzil Doyle is chairman of CapitalAlliance Ventures Inc., a venture capi-tal firm specializing in high technolo-gy investing. He may be reached byphone at 613-567-3225 or e-mail [email protected]

Dollars and senseDENZILDOYLE

In MyOpinion

“Instead of sitting back and waffling about theirpositions on the Canadian dollar, our leadersshould be cheering it on.”


There are some 120 young companies inBritish Columbia that comprise the nas-cent wireless technology sector in thatprovince. A recent survey fromPriceWaterhouseCoopers reported that thewireless industry appears poised fortremendous growth.

The survey found that the critical suc-cess factors identified by the respondingcompanies, in priority order were: Theability to execute sales, the ability to accessfunding, access to markets and customers,and finally, R&D capacity.

It’s interesting that attracting manage-ment and technical talent was not identi-fied as a major concern. Although employ-ment in the wireless industry is expected togrow from approximately 2,000 in 2002 toover 3,300 in 2004, some of this demandmay come from the traditional info-techtalent pool. It may also not have been citedas a concern because of the BC govern-ment’s Double The Opportunity initiativeto double high technology enrollment in

the post-secondary education institutes.What I found particularly interesting is

the high level of research and developmentexpenditures relative to sales. Over thepast two years, more than $118 million wasspent on R&D as compared to aggregatesales over the same period of $482 million.It should be noted that these numbers per-tain only to some 42 companies in totalthat reported revenues. Many are still at thedevelopment stage.

BC may well be the best jurisdiction inthe world for building a technology ven-ture, especially for those heavily commit-ted to R&D as is the case in the wirelesssector. As an example, for every dollar thata privately-held company located in BCspends on research salaries, it can get 68cents back in cash in the form of a refund-able tax credit.

That number comes as a surprise tomany. That’s because the Canada Customsand Revenue Agency’s own publicity gen-erally refers to the 35 per cent maximumthat it provides under its ScientificResearch and Experimental Developmenttax credit program. However, BC providesanother 10 per cent on top of that andcompanies can gross up their direct costswith an overhead allowance. Do the mathand it works out to 68 per cent.

Unfortunately, some of the top R&Dperformers such as Sierra Wireless, the rev-enue leader in the BC wireless sector, gets alesser incentive—topping out at 46 percent—for having grown beyond the pri-vately owned stage of business develop-ment. And, for companies not yet report-ing a profit, the tax credit is, regrettably,non-refundable.

The innovative capacity, as measured bypatents, is impressive. Given that morethan three-quarters of the respondentshave been in the wireless business for lessthan five years, more than 375 patents havebeen filed. This reflects the brain trustbeing developed at BC universities, notablythe University of British Columbia thatgenerates three times more patents thanany other Canadian university.

Commercializing these inventionsrequires capital. Another BC incentivebenefits start-ups seeking private equitycapital. Investors receive a 30 per centrefundable tax credit on funding providedto qualifying ventures under the recentlyrevamped BC Equity Capital program.This helps companies to attract angelinvestors and mentors.

In BC, another big plus is the recentoverhaul of the BC Securities Act. It is nowpossible for BC companies to access the

equity market without the traditional—and costly—rules associated with the rais-ing of equity capital, especially from pri-vate investors.

The Wireless Innovation Network ofBC, an industry organization catering tothe business needs of this sector and theNew Media Innovation Centre, a collabo-rative research initiative have been formedspecifically to further fuel and support thispromising technology cluster. These com-plement other organizations such as theAdvanced Systems Institute of BC.

The way I see it, the wireless industry asdefined by wireless devices, infrastructure,enabling software, wireless content andportals, and enterprise class solutionsholds a lot of promise as being one of thehot technology sectors of the next decade.What better place to benefit from this thanin British Columbia?

Michael Volker is a high technologyentrepreneur and director of SimonFraser University’s Industry LiaisonOffice. He oversees Vancouver’s AngelTechnology Network and is chair of theBC Advanced Systems Institute andpast-chair of the Vancouver EnterpriseForum. He may be reached [email protected]

Bankruptcy has been in the news fair-ly frequently in the years since the burstof the 2001 tech bubble. Companies suchas Enron and WorldCom joined thelegions of dot-com companies that sankbeneath the waves once their sources offunding ran out. What made these twoinsolvencies particularly shocking wasthat their problems appeared to comeout of nowhere. Those companies wentbust with breathtaking speed, leavingshocked investors and employees won-dering how it could have happened. Inthose cases, death was relatively quick,like a sudden heart attack.

Bankruptcy is usually neither unfore-seen nor quick. Companies pile up oper-ating losses one quarter after anotheruntil their book values evaporate.Eventually, whatever assets were availableto fund operations are all gone and theyhave no way of paying their bills.

Finally, a large creditor—typically alender, supplier or landlord—demandspayment and the company is petitionedinto bankruptcy. In theory, this meansthe assets are sold off and creditors arepaid one at a time with whatever pro-ceeds arise from the asset sales, althoughfrequently creditors are paid with pro-

portionate owner-ship of the companyitself.

The shareholdersend up with what’sleft after the creditorsare satisfied; howev-er, if the bankruptcompany had much in the way of assets,it would likely not have gone bankrupt.So shareholders of bankrupt companies

almost always end up with nothing.In other words, investors should avoid

buying the shares of bankrupt compa-nies, or even those with a reasonablechance of going bankrupt. There are atleast two things to consider when tryingto figure out if a company is in jeopardy:The income statement, where chroniclosses are a worrisome indicator, and thebalance sheet, which holds several keyindicators.

Of course, loss-making companiesdon’t always go bankrupt, as long as they

can continue raisingmore capital. In factmany companies areprodigious users ofcapital before theystart to generate prof-its.

For example, hightech companies, which tend to spend alot on R&D in their early years, ortelecommunications companies, which

spend a lot to build their networks beforethe tide turns. Investors in those kinds ofcompanies usually keep funding them aslong as the respective companies are onplan, and as long as the plan makessense.

The collapse of the bubble reducedinvestor enthusiasm for tech and telecomstocks considerably, and the resultingwithdrawal of money from the stockmarket makes raising money for theseventures doubly challenging. As a result,very few equity issues are being done and

companies—tech and telecom in partic-ular—are pretty much on their own.

In other words, if they can’t becomeprofitable before they run out of money(or at least last until the stock marketrevives), they are going to go bankrupt,unless of course they can sell themselvesfirst.

I keep a “dead pool” list of high techbankruptcy candidates, mostly out of per-sonal interest because so many of thesewere high fliers during the bubble, oftencarried aloft by bizarre or non-existentbusiness plans or products. Compiling thelist was fairly easy because all of the mem-bers have what is called a “going concernnotice” in their financial statements.

A going concern notice is a messagefrom the company’s auditors, which meansthey probably won’t make it through theyear, and it is always a bad sign. Buyingshares of companies whose auditors don’tthink they can make it is an almost certainway of losing your entire investment.

Brian Piccioni is an equity analyst atBMO Nesbitt Burns. He may be reachedby phone at 416-359-5761, by fax at416-359-5356 and by e-mail [email protected]

BC’s the place for wireless innovationMIKEVOLKER

The WayI See It

BRIANPICCIONI

FinancialFocus

Face down in the dead pool

Bankruptcy is usually neither unforeseennor quick.


The patentability of software has alwaysbeen somewhat controversial in the techni-cal community. On the one hand, theOpen Source community sees softwarepatents as inhibiting development. On theother hand, companies involved in devel-oping commercial products see it as a nec-essary step to protecting their key assets.

Developers in Canada and the UnitedStates have been treated more favourablyon this issue when applying for patents inNorth America. The US Patent Office, inparticular, was quick to recognise the eco-nomic value that results from the applica-tion of the power of the computer to busi-ness and, consequently, the value of soft-ware protection to a company. Canadia hasfollowed suit, granting software patents ona routine basis.

Generally speaking, they have taken aliberal view on what is patentable, and as aresult, protection is routinely available foralgorithms, protocols, interfaces and thelike. More recently, the US Supreme Courtfound business methods, and indeed “any-thing new under the sun” to be patentable.This decision has led to some infamous

results, such as the patenting of methods ofcleaning offices and a golf grip for putting.

The European Courts and PatentOffices take a very different view on soft-ware patentability.

There, the standards for patentability areset by the European Patent Office wherethey have adopted a more “controlled”approach that includes a prohibition in theEuropean Patent Convention for thepatentability of computer programs.

Why should this difference of opinionmatter to a Canadian software developer?There is a move to global harmonization ofstandards which will ultimately includepatentability issues surrounding software.This could impact the ability of Canadiandevelopers to acquire patents for their soft-ware or business methods. This is not to betaken lightly, since the European PatentOffice represents a very powerful force inthis area.

The argument in European minds per-tains to the issue of what is consideredinvention. The guidelines used by theEuropean Patent Office to determinepatentability rely on the presence of a tech-nical character in the invention. It hasestablished that pure business methods,

such as the room-cleaning technique forexample, do not have a technical characterand therefore should not be patentable.

A more difficult issue arises where theinvention is involved with both technicaland non-technical features—for example,a pizza delivery system with a databasemanagement tool. The European argu-ment revolves around whether or not the“invention” has to be in the technical com-ponent alone or whether the overall con-

cept(s) should be judged for inventiveness.An interesting case in point occurred

recently when an invention related to acellphone system in which the subscriberidentity module (SIM) had two identitiesso the user could select one or the other toassist in the distribution of billings andcosts. The applicant felt that the provisionof two identities, together with the solu-tion of how to activate and select the sys-tem for the desired identity, was apatentable invention.

The company opposing the grant of thepatent argued that the allocation of two ormore identities to the same subscriber todistribute the costs was an issue of theGSM commercial and administrative man-agement, rather than a technical feature of

the telephone network. The ultimate deci-sion found that the patents could only begranted to inventive solutions to technicalproblems and not for inventive solutions tocommercial problems.

In this case, the European Patent Office’sBoard of Appeals considered only the tech-nical aspect of the invention and found itnot to be patentable in view of an earlierpublication that described allocation ofmultiple identities to a SIM.

In North America, where more latitudeis given to the scope of inventiveness, thismay have turned out differently.

Canadian developers should be con-cerned with this decision, because of thebroader implications as we move towardsglobal harmonization of patent laws. As itstands now, the issue of what is patentable,and whether or not inventiveness has to bejudged on technical character alone, is oneof the major issues under discussion in theharmonization efforts.

Whatever the decision, it will have a sig-nificant impact on software patent applica-tions as we know them today and couldimpact overall competitiveness for NorthAmerican developers.

Edwin Gale is a registered patent andtrade mark agent and the president ofthe International Federation ofIntellectual Property Attorneys (FICPI)Canada which represents more than4,500 members in over 70 countries. TheFICPI Web site is www.ficpi.org.

ORBITSO

Opinions differ over software patentsEDWINGALE

PatentUpdate

Glen Brownlee (Burnaby)has been appointed as chairman and CEOof Tantalus Systems Corp., a privately-owned wireless communication companythat designs, develops, and markets two-way, real-time data communication net-works. Brownlee has held several executiveroles with companies such as SierraWireless, Motorola and Simware.

Bruce Powell (Toronto)has been appointed presidentof the Association of InternetMarketing and Sales, anational association promot-

ing the use of the Internet as a marketingand sales channel. Powell has built man-agement teams for a wide variety of com-munications, media and internet technolo-gy companies in the past.

Chris Erickson (Toronto)is the new president and COOof Tira Wireless, a full-servicepublisher of wireless Javaapplications for mobile

phones. In 1997, Erickson co-founded 724Solutions Inc., a Toronto-based providerof technology solutions for mobile opera-

tors to deliver next-generation IP and dataservices. He was the recipient of Canada’s“Top 40 Under 40” award in 2000.

Prakash Tejwani (Ottawa)has joined MuAnalysis Inc. as a sales con-sultant. The company is a provider of diag-nostic techniques for microelectronics andphotonics. MuAnalysis, an affiliate ofSemiconductor Insights, offers electronmicroscopy, emission microscopy, micro-surgery, failure analysis techniques andreliability testing.

Mark Kaufmann(Montreal)is the new vice-president ofCelmed BioSciences, a sub-sidiary of Theratechnologies

which is engaged in the field of cell thera-py. Kaufmann has 15 years of experience inthe biopharmaceutical industry in both theUS and Canada. Previously at NexiaBiotechnologies in Montreal, he wasresponsible for building the company’sbiopharmaceutical business, includingproduct development and negotiatinglicensing agreements.

Stephen Van Houten(Toronto)has been hired as the newpresident and CEO of thePurchasing Management

Association of Canada. Van Houten hasover 20 years of experience in all levels ofgovernance and the non-profit sector.

Ken Lawless (Ottawa)has been promoted to president and CEOof the Ottawa Life Sciences Council. Sincethe inception of the Council in 1994,Lawless has functioned as the lead admin-istrator and executive officer, making himthe longest serving leader among Ottawa’seconomic development agencies.

Dawson Lane (Toronto)has been recruited by T4GLimited to lead a newMicrosoft CustomerRelationship Managementinitiative. T4G is a full-service

project-based IT professional servicescompany. Previously Lane was president ofNavision Software Canada, a provider ofenterprise business solutions for mid-sizedcompanies.

Tony Gaffney (Montreal)is the new CEO at BCE Emergis, a compa-ny enabling specialized transactionprocesses for the health and finance sec-tors. Gaffney was previously president andCEO of Bell Nexxia.

Titi Saleh (Ottawa)is the new business develop-ment director for Webcastingand hosting company,NtegratingSolutions Inc.,

where she will work with existing cus-tomers and develop new business opportu-nities for the firm.

Sandra Scott (Calgary)has been appointed as man-aging partner of AGTIConsulting Services (West)Inc. The company’s range of

services includes IT management consult-ing, technology consulting and IT projectmanagement. Scott is an experienced busi-ness manager and information systemsprofessional with more than 19 years ofexperience in the IT industry.

Global harmonization of standards...couldimpact the ability of Canadian developers toacquire patents for their software.


organization?mean to your

Get the answers inthe July/August

edition of

For advertising information pleasecall us at 1-866-410-6660

or visit www.siliconvalleynorth.com

What does it

e-Business

Silicon Valley NORTH

When first learning to play a hornof any kind, a music student istold “bring the instrument to

your mouth, not your mouth to the instru-ment.” Poor posture and ineffective per-formance result when a beginner musiciantries to “bend” to the instrument. Likewisewith effective technology training, the besttrends move technology to bend with thepeople the technology is intended to serve.This results in better performance and, in asense, a better professional posture.

Technology training is going throughsome growing pains right now. Manyindustry-standard certification tracks havederailed, while demand for effective quick-to-market training has increased. The allureof e-learning has been replaced by a healthyskepticism about spending money on raz-zle-dazzle that neither maps back to busi-ness goals nor to the way people learn.

Some of the trends in technology train-ing that are adapting to the people—andhence companies—they serve include thefollowing.

Filling out learning withscenariosMuch of what passed for effective technicaltraining in the 90s was merely content cutand pasted out of textbooks. If you thinkabout some of those books grade school

kids read to “choose your own adventure”that’s what some scenario-based training isabout. Training focused on scenarios mapsback to the trend in technology for integra-tion. Scenario-based learning is not suffi-cient on its own.

Scenario-based learning adapts the con-tent of the learning around the job the peo-ple are intended to perform.

Strategically using online learningThis trend comes and goes with the latestdevelopments in stability and reliability ondistributed networks. In a post 9-11 world,companies are even more reticent to flypeople around the country for training.

Midway between classroom training ande-mailing a learning document, onlinelearning adapts the schedule and the loca-tion around the needs of the learner and ismost effective for quick reminders orfocused skill development.

Getting the right peopledevelopingCompanies that want to improve adoptionof their technology solutions have spent thepast few years reorganizing their learningdepartments to be staffed with people withexpertise in both training and technology.

Hiring people who understand bothlearning strategies and technology is much

more important in a changing environ-ment if training is to be focused on thestructure of the technology. Merely havingboth technical and educational people onthe curriculum development team is not aseffective as having those with both compe-tencies.

Bringing certification insideAlthough vendor certification is not dead,vendor neutral certifications are increasingin popularity. They’re less expensive, moreportable, and don’t suffer the same protec-tionist biases that many of the vendor-spe-cific certifications do.

However, many medium to large compa-nies are developing their own certificationtracks that map to career paths and compe-tency development. Certainly vendor-spe-cific training can continue to add value tothese kinds of initiatives, but will not be thedriving force. Certification inside the com-pany rewards tenure while at the same timefocusing on skill development for theemployees.

Leveraging communities ofpracticeUsing a portal system, such asSharepoint or Websphere, many matur-ing companies are leveraging the knowl-edge of their people. This tacit knowl-

edge is really what the company“knows.”

In a sense, communities of practiceare ergonomically designed around theinformal way that effective growthalready occurs within a company. Acommunity of practice infrastructurejust adds support and intentionality tothis gold mine of virtual water coolerprofessional discussions.

In conclusion, the best technologytraining focuses on the people. The dis-comfort people feel in sitting down at acomputer with a screen in the wronglocation is the same kind of discomfortthey feel when technology training asksthem to bend to it rather than the otherway around.

David Nickerson is a training consultantand partner with TrainingFolks. His techni-cal education experiences range from collegeto corporate and government. He may bereached by phone at 905-763-0588 ext. 320or e-mail at [email protected]

Adapt training to the peopleDAVIDNICKERSON

TechTraining

Alcatel powers microwave radio network forNewfoundland and Labrador Hydro

OTTAWA, ON—Alcatel, Ottawa, has been awarded a $10 million contract byNewfoundland and Labrador Hydro for the East-West Coast Interconnect Project, thefinal phase of the deployment of a digital microwave radio network providing advancedcommunications services for the Canadian utility company. Last year Alcatel, headquar-tered in Paris, announced the completion of the first phase of this deployment coveringthe east coast of the Canadian province.

The new infrastructure transfers line protection circuits from the public telephone sys-tem to the utility company’s own microwave system.

The East-West Coast Interconnect Project will complete a province-wide networkrollout of high-speed data and voice links between the utility company’s Energy ControlCentre, generating stations and remote locations monitoring power delivery to cus-tomers. Alcatel provided equipment and integration services across all phases of the util-ity company’s network upgrade and expansion.

Vistar receives $5.25 million funding fromTechnology Partnerships Canada

MONTREAL, QC—NSI Global Inc. a Montreal-based global supplier of satellite-basedcommunications systems, says its Vistar subsidiary will receive a $5.25 million contribu-tion over three years from the Government of Canada’s Technology PartnershipsProgram. The funds will be used for the development of next generation, satellite-basedtelematics for the marine, trucking and auto industries.

“Vistar is committed to a broad-based product and system evolution over the nextthree-to-five years that will address opportunities in the new and emerging telematicsmarket associated with asset tracking, monitoring, and management,” says Neil Knudsen,president of Ottawa-based Vistar Telecommunications Inc.

Technology Partnerships Canada makes conditionally repayable strategic investmentsto promote innovation, commercialization, sustainable development, and increased pri-vate sector investment.

NEWS EXTRA


Event Date Location Overview Contact Info

Canadian New MediaAwards (CNMA)

SUPERCOMM 2003: TheGlobal Communications

Infrastructure Marketplace

IS2003: 13th Annual CanadianConference on Intelligent

Systems

Canadian National HigherEducation InformationTechnology Conference

BioSummit2003@McMaster

The 2003 CanadianTelecom Summit

Canada’s Venture Capital &Private Equity Association

(CVCA) Annual Conference

15th Annual ComputerSecurity Incident Handling

Conference

WOC 2003, Wireless andOptical Communications

BioContact Québec 2003

Capital Network EventsConferences for 2003

June 2, 2003

June 4, 2003

June 8-10, 2003

June 8-11, 2003

June 11, 2003

June 11-12, 2003

June 11-13, 2003

June 22-27, 2003

July 14-16, 2003

October 1-3, 2003

Various

Winter Garden Theatre,Toronto

Canadian Consulate General,Atlanta, GA

World Trade and ConventionCentre, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Brock University,St. Catharines, Ontario

McMaster University,Hamilton

The Westin Prince Hotel,Toronto

Fairmont Château LaurierHotel, Ottawa

The Westin, Ottawa

Banff, Alberta

Château Frontenac, Québec

Various

This Canadian awards event attracts entries from over800 interactive digital technology professionals

across all provinces.

The annual industry gathering place for serviceproviders, enterprise network managers and other

communication industry professionals.

The latest advances in intelligent systems and robot-ics technologies, including demonstrations and work-

shops.

The theme of this conference is “Your IT Info-Structure” and is for people using or involved in

information technology in a higher education setting.

An event for those involved in the bioscience busi-ness and venture capital, investment and financing of

new companies.

This event brings together key influencers creatingCanada’s unique telecommunications

market structure.

An event for venture capitalists, private equityinvestors, institutional investors, entrepreneurs,placement agents, bankers and intermediaries.

An event that focuses on the field of computersecurity incident handling and response.

This conference will highlight the latest research anddevelopments in the fields of telecommunications

and information technology.

More than 160 biopharmaceutical companies, com-ing from Canada, the United States, Asia

and Europe will be presenting in different sectors.

Capital Network Events will be holding four largeventure and private equity conferences and eight

angel investor programs throughout 2003.

Rachel BanduraTel: (416) 760-6794

www.cnma.ca

Sean BarrTel: (403) 292-6415

www.supercomm2003.com

Tel: (613) 727-9576 [email protected]

Web site: www.precarn.ca

[email protected]/it2003

[email protected]/Biosummit2003

[email protected]

CVCA, Tel: (416) 487-0519 [email protected]

First. Org, Inc.at [email protected]

www.first.org/conference/2003/

IASTED, Tel: (403) 288-1195 [email protected]

www.iasted.org/conference.htm

BioContact, Tel: (418) 694-8778or [email protected]

www.biocontact.qc.ca

www.cnevents.com

Send your events to: [email protected]

VENTSE

By Janice Schellenberger

The Biotechnology Sector in Canada,although still relatively small in number offirms (approximately 300), is seen to be veryimportant to the future of Canada and hasbeen steadily growing each year. Canada is rec-ognized throughout the world as a key playerin the industry, with annual sales of more than$1 billion, of which exports account for nearly40 per cent, broadly employing 60,000 people,with approximately 10,000 in specializedbiotechnology jobs.

Until recently the sector witnessed signifi-cantly less impact from the recent economicslowdown compared to other industry sectors.Canadian biotech firms were beginning tomove beyond their traditional strength of R&D

and are aggressively moving into commercial-ization. Compensation levels were on a strongincreasing trend to compete with Europeanand US firms for specialized skills in areas suchas strategic alliances, investor relations andintellectual property.

However, the continuing sluggish economyis finally beginning to take its toll within thebiotech market. Firms are facing poorprospects of raising new financing and as suchare beginning to struggle for enough cash tosupport ongoing operations, research andcommercialization. Dundee Securities,Toronto, recently estimated that more than 30per cent of Canadian biotechnology companiesare undercapitalized. The result has been awave of consolidations and mergers in the pastfew months.

The result on compensation becomes

immediately obvious: in a period of less than afew months the trend in salary levels is begin-ning to move downwards. Companies areattempting to reduce costs wherever possible.As yet the cost-reduction measures do notappear to have prompted large lay-offs butsuch a possibility remains if the economic cli-mate does not improve.

The highest concentration of biotechnologyfirms is in the province of Quebec, followed byOntario and then BC. Figures indicated aredrawn from a database of approximately 100biotechnology firms with data updated daily.

Janice Schellenberger is a senior partnerwith the consulting firm of PersonnelSystems and compINSIGHT. She may bereached at 613-241-8210 or [email protected]

Biotechnology salariesbeginning to show strain

SALARY

SCALE

For more information about listing on TSX Venture please contact Delilah Panio at (416) 365-2213 or [email protected] more information about listing on Toronto Stock Exchange please contact Business Development at (416) 947-4728 or 1-888-873-8392 or email [email protected]

TSX Venture Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange. Members of TSX Group. www.tsx.com

TSX Venture Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange are home to more than 475 technology companies with a total

market cap of over $38 billion. Last year alone our technology companies raised over $2 billion in equity capital,

and saw more than 11 billion shares valued at over $64 billion traded on our two exchanges. The world’s leading

companies in communications & networking, electronics, internet, hardware and software trade on our exchanges.

Connect with us - we can take you where you want to grow.

Connect to the capital you need to grow.

OLUME UMBER Inside THIS EDITION Women aim high for tech ... · cash flow statement,notes to the...

Documents

Transcript of OLUME UMBER Inside THIS EDITION Women aim high for tech ... · cash flow statement,notes to the...