Canadian Blog Awards
Hey, I almost forgot that round one voting is taking place todayfor the Canadian Blog Awards. I'm nominated in two categories - Best
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It looks like Mike Zafirovski is wasting no time revamping Nortel's
management team. According to UBS Securities, the executives shown the door recently include
chief research officer Brian McFadden and Sue Spradley, president of
global services and operations. Both McFadden and Spradley were
long-time Nortel executives who had been shuffled around recently. They
were also among the group of senior executives who “voluntarily” returned
large bonuses in the wake of Nortel's accounting scandal.
So who's next on the hit list? While it would be a major surprise if
CFO Peter Currie leaves the company (Zafirovski has made some positive
public statements about Currie), you have to wonder about Steve
Slattery and Richard Lowe. In yet another corporate reorganization
unveiled in September that split the company into two product groups,
Slattery was appointed head of Nortel's corporate
and
packet networks business while Lowe was named head of
wireless and converged core networks. Niether long-time executive was
seen as a star within Nortel so you have to wonder whether Zafirovski
will keep them in such key posititions. Like a baseball manager or
football coach who wants to be surrounded by his own people, Zafirovski
will likely recruit people he knows and trusts. His settlement with
Motorola - where he spent five years before leaving in January after
losing a bid to become CEO - will keep him from poaching former
colleagues - at least for awhile. But look for him to start shuffling
Nortel's management ranks in short order as he works on this turnaround
plan.
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I started to leaf through the latest Wired magazineRelated Posts
With Tivo prepared to offer searchable, downloadable advertising, I wonder if it enhances or detracts from a Google acquisition? In a previous post,
I thought a Tivo-Google marriage made sense because it would offer
Google an easy and relatively inexpensive way to establish a foothold
in the television market. Now, I'm not so sure. If Google is interested
in this market, there are other routes it can take other than spending
$500-million on Tivo. For example, it could sign deals with cablecos
such as Comcast, which appears to be a strong Google ally, to offer
AdSense/keyword advertising on a PVR device. Google could also strike
deals with a DVR makers to produce a low-cost product with Google
AdSense as a built-in feature. As Om Malik
points out in the latest issue of Business 2.0, Google M&A strategy
is focused on technology and people rather than full-fledged companies.
This pretty much eliminates Tivo as a takeover candidate - not even
taking into account the competition it's facing from cablecos,
satellite TV and, increasingly, telcos. A more likley scenario is
Google deals with a wide variety of service providers to create
revenue-sharing advertising opportunities in whiche content and
relevant-based advertising are seamlessly merged. So where does leave
Tivo? I suspect it will carry on with its
throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks strategy until
something works.
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Has Halifax becomes the hot, new high-tech centre in North America? The
city certainly has to be feeling pretty good after convincing Research
in Motion Ltd. to create 1,200 jobs there over the next five years.
These aren't low-paying call-centre jobs but “technical service”
positions where people handle problems that the carriers' customer reps
can't resolve. The Halifax facility will also take care of RIM's
top15,000 corporate customers. So why Halifax? Aside from C$19-million
government aid, the province of Nova Scotia has a strong
post-secondary education system, lots of people who want to stay in the
province rather than “go away” to Ontario, and close proximity to the
Eastern Seaboard. I suspect Nova Scotia will also bend over backwards
to ensure RIM has everything it needs to start doing business without
any bureaucratic hurdles. Still, it's a big coup for Halifax
given RIM must have been swamped with attractive offers from Canadian
and U.S. cities for the new facility. (RIM already operates similar
centres in Waterloo, Asia and Europe). It's also a major public
relations/goodwill coup for RIM, which scores huge points with
Canadians and the federal government.
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So why do you blog? For fame? To have a creative and public outlet? To make the world a better place like my friend Tyler Hamilton? Vanity? Or, perhaps, for fortune? The New York TimesRelated Posts