2005 September | Mark Evans

The Nortel Shuffle

September 30th, 2005 | 1 Comment | Posted in Main Page, Nortel Networks

It was nice knowing you, Malcolm Collins.
Collins, who has headed Nortel's enterprise business since 2002, is
leaving the company (was he pushed or did he jump?). His departure is
part of a reorganization by Nortel to “better meet the needs of global
enterprise and carrier customers in the converged marketplace” -
whatever that means. Nortel will be split into two business units: the
enterprise and packet networks division will be headed by Steve
Slattery, while Richard Lowe, who was president of Nortel's CDMA
business, will head up the mobiity and converged networks unit. So now
that CEO Bill Owens has revamped the executive suites, how about
articulating some strategic vision?

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Friday Morning Bytes: Cool Events, P2P, Emily Chang Rocks

September 30th, 2005 | 1 Comment | Posted in Main Page, Web-based Services

Event Envy: I'm not a big conference fan but it's difficult not to get a bad case of event-envy when it comes to things such as Demo, GnomeDex, CES and Web 2.0,
which takes place next week. If you're into technology, these are the
places to discover what's coming down the pipe. I either need a
different job or a bigger travel budget - and a Walter Mossberg mandate!
P2P is Evil: A new study
came out yesterday about file-sharing activity in Canada. Apparently
12-to-24-year-old account for 21% of the population but 78% of illegal
downloading (even though it has yet to be determined if downloading
music is illegal yet up here). The music industry, which claims retail
sales of music have tumbled $541-million since 1999, suggests - this is
huge! - that people who “steal” music are also more prone to unethical
or illegal activities such as cheating on exams. Anyone thinking someone in the music industry recently saw Reefer Madness?
Emily Chang Rocks: Finally, if you're into Web services, you must swing by eHub today. In fact, do it right now. Emily Chang has put together an awesome list of new services, applications, blogs, sites and resources. (Hat tip to Rick Segal)

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Virgin Canada Drops Pre-Paid Prices

September 29th, 2005 | 2 Comments | Posted in Main Page, Wireless

Just when you thought Canada's wireless industry had all agreed (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) to “pricing stability”, Virgin Mobile Canada
comes and wrecks the party by offering a new pre-paid plan featuring
10¢ a minute calls (plus a 40¢ a day fee). It's a huge drop given
Virgin was charging 25¢ for the first five minutes and 15¢ afterwards.
So what does it mean? For one, the CEOs of the big three- Telus, Bell
Mobility and and Rogers - probably had a collective temper tantrum,
crossed Virgin Canada CEO Andrew Black of their Christmas lists and did some ARPU recalculations. As for Virgin, it's difficult to tell what it means. The 10¢ a minute plan - known as Day2Day - is part of the Virgin U.S.
rate package so the Canadian offering is not new. Then again, you hear
so little about how Virgin is doing in Canada - partly because the
target audience is the teen set and that's a demographic I have no
insight into. If you talk to Rogers and Telus, they'll tell you their
pre-paid sales have not been affected but I wouldn't expect them to say
otherwise.

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RIM's Going to Make it After All

September 29th, 2005 | 3 Comments | Posted in Main Page, Wireless/Research in Motion

Apologies for title's reference to the theme song from the Mary Tyler Moore Show,
but when will people stop saying “Sure RIM is a great company but there
are only xx million Blackbery users?”. Maybe today is the day after RIM
said it expects to have five million subscribers by end of fiscal 2006
while sales will be about $2-billion. Say what you will about the Treo 700w, et al but the Blackberry remains the
standard for mobile e-mail. Things could really interesting if
RIM can upgrade the Blackberry's telephone and Web browser.
Going back to my riff earlier this week
on the all-in-one wireless device, what about the idea of a Treo iPod
that would feature Treo's strong calendar, contact and Web browser
features
with the 4GB or 6GB of iPod goodness? Do you think Palm and Steve Jobs
can
ever dance now that Palm is dating Microsoft - even if Palm CEO Ed Colligan is giving away Bill Gates' cell phone numbers to anyone who wants it.

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VoIPSupply.com Moves into Canada

September 29th, 2005 | No Comments | Posted in Main Page, VOIP Services, Competition

VoIPSupply.com has reached out to Canadian consumers with the launch of canadianvoipstore.com. Aside from selling in Canadian
dollars, the site will offer more than 1,000 different SKUs. Given Voxilla
moved into Canada earlier this year, perhaps it's a sign the market is
expected to gain strong momentum now that Rogers, Bell, Shaw, Cogeco
and Videotron are offering service - along with Vonage, AOL, BabyTel,
Primus, etc. (The only one missing from the party is Telus but they've
got a pesky strike to resolve). According to Seaboard Group, there will be 4.02 million VoIP subscribers by 2008 compared with 417K by the end of this year. Montreal-based BabyTel, which aside from desperately needs a new name, recently moved into the U.S. market.

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The Best Skype Ever!…a.k.a. Another Upgrade

September 29th, 2005 | No Comments | Posted in Main Page, VOIP Services, Competition/Skype

Given it's been in beta since August, no one should be surprised by the launch of Skype 1.4,
which offers ways for users to personalize the service with ringtones,
sounds and photos. The most interesting part of the press release is
that Skype has signed up another two million users since the eBay deal,
an now has more than 56 million. The software been downloaded nearly
175 million times.

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Nice, Blogware, Nice

September 29th, 2005 | No Comments | Posted in Blog Services, Main Page

Perhaps the comment spam deluge that hit Blogware last week may have a
silver lining. I noticed today an authentication box to make a comment.
On another positive note, I actually had a Blogware tech guy ask for
suggestions on how to improve the service. Light at the end of the blog
rainbow?

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Hello, Mr. Gates?

September 28th, 2005 | 2 Comments | Posted in Main Page, Uncategorized

Looks like Palm CEO Ed Colligan may have inadvertently given away Bill Gates cell number while showing off the new Windows-powered Treo 700w
earlier this week. While demonstrating the ease in finding contact
information, Colligan used Gates as an example. A quick off the mark
colleague noticed Gates' number and jotted it down. To see if it
actually was the real number, he sent Gates a short text-message.
Within minutes, a P.R. person from Microsoft Canada called back. I
wonder how long it's going to take Gates to change his number?

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Vonage IPO on the Way

September 28th, 2005 | No Comments | Posted in Main Page, VOIP Services, Competition/Vonage

After raising more than $400-million in private equity, Vonage's IPO (is its still much-anticipated??) is on the way after Light Reading reported yesterday the lead underwriters have been selected - Citibank, UBS AG, and Deutsche Bank AG. The big question is how much Vonage is worth. The figure $1.5-billion has been frequently cited (the methodology, however, has never been spelled out), while Charlie Lax, managing general partner with GrandBanks Captial, was bubbling about a $10-billion valuation at Fall VON last week. If anything, the Vonage IPO should set a pretty good valuation benchmarket for the VOIP industry. If the IPO is well-received, the rising tide could lift all ships and make it easeier for other VOIP companies to follow in Vonage's wake. If, for whatever reason, investors are less than enthusiastic about the offering, it could put a dark cloud over the industry while making Skype's investors look like geniuses for getting out while the going was good.

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Tivo Finally Coming to Canada

September 28th, 2005 | 2 Comments | Posted in Main Page

Hat tip to Rick Segal for passing along a Gizmodo post on how Tivo will finally be made available to Canadians.
The only problem is Canadians have to buy/import Tivo units in the U.S.
and then follow special instructions to set it up.If your Tivo breaks, warranty replacement units will only be
shipped to the U.S. You can buy a box for as low as $49.99, while
monthly service is $12.99 or $299 for a life-time deal. So what is Tivo?
In simple terms, it's a really smart set-top box much like what Rogers
is selling now only better. Among Tivo's issues is its growth is being
challenged by cablecos who would rather the develop their own in-house
PVR than enter into a partnership with Tivo. As of the end of the second-quarter, Tivo had 3.6 million subscribers uet only generated $240,000 in profits on $40.7-million of sales.