A Bad Week For Canadian Technology
I left a voice-mail message for a high-tech analyst yesterday about the latest “soap opera”, assuming he knew I was talking about Nortel and the abrupt departures of COO Gary Daichendt and CTO Gary Kunis. When the call was returned, his response was “Which soap opera? Cognos, ATI, RIM or Nortel?” This nicely summed up a bizarre and troubling week for Canadian high-tech companies. Here's a snapshot of what went down:
1. ATI Technologies: the Ontario Securities Commission continues its insider-trading case against chairman K.Y. Ho and his wife, Betty, over whether they had knowledge of trades made in 2000 - a month before the graphics card maker said it would fail to meet quarterly profit and sales targets.
2. Cognos Inc.: the business intelligence software maker surprises the market on news its first-quarter results were short of forecasts. Cognos is well known for managing expectations so a miss is a major development.
3. Research in Motion: its US$450-million patent settlement with NTP Inc. evaporates - a move that sends RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie into a fury during a conference call.
4. Nortel Networks: Daichendt and Kunis resign after apparently having a restructuring plan rejected by the board as too “radical”.
All in all, it's a great time to be a technology reporter. There is nothing better than bad news and drama to spice up the world of corporate news. In and of itself, Nortel has been a journalist's dream with its ongoing troubles. It sure makes going to work a lot more fun!
