My Channel Elite Awards (CEA) tour that I did earlier this year I think really paid off.

The number of submissions dramatically increased.

We were up by 14 per cent from last year.

I want to thank everyone I met with. I appreciate their time and their effort made an impact.

One quick hit before I go. Looks like Cygnal Technologies is in trouble. We will be reporting on this story this week along with SecTor conference.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 8/10/07, 10:00 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

On tour with the Channel Elite Awards

Well, day one of my Channel Elite Awards (CEA) tour did not go very well as my only meeting was canceled, but day two was a lot better.

I met with the fine people at Strategic Ampersand who handle EMC, Cisco, Novell, CDW and many others. They were all very excited at the possibility of highlighting their clients' technology through channel partners.

I got a chance to meet virtually the entire team there, which was great for me to put a face to the many people who call and e-mail me.

One of those PR practitioners, Katie Rankin, was telling me about all of the clients she works on. There were so many that I stopped counting at eight.

I realize that reporters covering this industry have to be broad but not necessarily deep, while PR practitioners must go deep with just a handful of high tech vendors.

My second stop was at CGI, the proud home of clients such as Belkin, SAS, Websense and dare I say it Dell. We met at the Second Cup café, which isn't my favourite place, but I do not like to complain so I will move on. I had a great meeting there. The team at CGI had lots of questions and great ideas. They too are interested in promoting client technology through channel partners who are recognized at the CEA awards.

Tomorrow I meet with reps from Tech Data, Ingram Micro and Symantec.

No quick hits today. It must be summer.

New levy targeted at iPod

Good news Future Shop is having a sale on Ipods. You can get one for $199 with 4GB or spend $364.99 for an 80 GB version.

But how would you feel if Future Shop or Best Buy or the Apple Store or any other IT retailer slapped a $75 levy on the purchase price of your Ipod? That can happen if the Canadian Copyright Collective has there way.

Currently, Canadians and only Canadians pay 21 cents on every blank media purchased.

I think that is totally stupid, but that is another story for another day.

At the heart of the issue is this gray area of what is storage media and what isn't. And, not all storage media is being used to copy pirated versions of Celine Dion tunes. The recording industry is still out to lunch on this topic as they can't see that people (their customers) have left them behind on this debate and continue to receive music online. I thought this levy was a dead issue. I have been writing stories on this for nearly a decade and this blatant tax on businesses and resellers who use storage media to hold data and not songs from Shania Twain lifted from the Web.

If the levy gets increased to that ridiculous number mentioned above what will happen is that vendors will not ship devices such as the iPod to Canada. This creates a grey market for the product and either way the levy lovers don't get their money.

And, with cellphone today having extra storage for MP3s what will this levy do for that market?

One quick hit before I go. Yegor Kuznetsov joins Brainware Inc. as director of analyst and media relations.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 8/8/07, 9:30 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Channel Elite Awards tour

I am on the road this week touring several vendor media reps to tell them all about the Channel Elite Awards (CEA).

You can get all the details by visiting www.itbusiness.ca/cea or email me at pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com and I will send you a pdf on it.

Channel Elite Awards is a true industry recognition program for the channel and to a certain extent the IT vendors. CDN encourages IT vendors to nominate its top partners so that they can share in the recognition.

This program is the only win-win situation out there that I can see. The awards will be presented on Nov. 14 at the Paramount Theatre in North Toronto.

Along with the Top 100 Solution Providers event, the CEA has become the defacto event of the fall for the channel. We get more than 200 channel partners attending this show and the reason for this is because the channel supports the channel community and the IT industry like no other. It truly is a beautiful thing to see.

I will update you on my travels throughout the week.

One quick hit before I go. Friend of CDN Gregg Jorritsma has landed. He will be the new managing partner and vice-president of Americas sales for Identita, a developer of next generation, multi-factor-logical and physical security solutions. I wish Gregg all the best.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 8/7/07, 11:00 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

More on the Intel ad kafuffle

One reader took the time to comment on Intel pulling a potentially racist ad for circulation.

This is what Hin Tang said: I agree with you that the ad and the ensuing kafuffle were both unnecessary. I think what it does reveal is that we have a way to go in terms of racial sensitivity. I am surprised that it's still a black and white issue. I wonder if there was much thought that went into who should be the "business casual" character. We still default to Caucasian for those roles. And I think this is where the insensitivity comes in.

In addition, regardless of how much respect we have for athletes who train extraordinarily hard to compete at the highest levels, there still is a truth to the fact that most of the owners who are making the money off of the hard work of the athletes are Caucasian. And that is where the reference to slavery comes in. I agree that no one would want to "go there". And Intel shouldn't have. Pulling the ad was the right decision.

If they had cast an Asian or a Hispanic or some other ethnic minority in the role of the "business casual", I bet it wouldn't have caused nearly as much controversy. Bad casting decision.

I want thank Mr. Tang for his time and comments on this issue. I think he makes a valid point for sure. I too wanted to add my two cents about freedom of speech and I guess in this case freedom of expression. We have those rights in Canada and the U.S. and many, many other places. I back Intel's right to pull the ad because it is their business and who am I to tell them what to do or how to run its business. But, as a work of art it should be shown. This ad should be discussed and not banned.

This ad reminds me of the old Duran Duran video Girls on Film, which has been banned by TV censors for decades because nudity. What I thought was more disturbing was the scene were a scantily clad women dressed in cowgirl outfit rides a naked black man with cardboard cut out of a horses head on his head into a ring where he is eventually whipped by the woman.

Is it disturbing? Yes. Is it a form of art? Yes. Therefore it should be shown. Music critics over the years have said Girls on Film is one of the best videos ever, but it is a shame few people have ever seen it.

I don't know if it is on YouTube, but it would not surprise me if it is.

One quick hit before I go. Former Qwest CEO has been sentenced to six years in the crowbar saloon for insider trading. A U.S. federal judge also ordered Joseph Nacchio to forfeit US$52 million in assets and to pay a fine of US$19 million.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 8/2/07, 10:30 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Intel and its print ad kafuffle

I would like to make this clear right from the get go. I am going to defend Intel in this blog because I believe its ad for the Core 2 Duo was accurate.

The chipmaker has admitted that the ad was insensitive and insulting. The ad pictures a Caucasian man in business casual attire in the middle of an office filled with cubicles. Each cubicle has a track & field sprinter in the starting blocks of a race. All those sprinters (there were six in total) just happen to be black athletes or are models portraying sprinters.

Intel pulled the ad but it managed to appear in one catalogue. According to news reports, people found the ad to be racially offensive. I can certainly understand their point of view. The slogan on top of the ad read: multiply computing performance and maximize the power of your employees. If Intel is guilty of anything with this ad it is of being stupid. This kind of ad is just asking for trouble.

However, if you look back at track & field sprinters the overwhelming majority of them are black athletes. So I do not see a problem with that. If you are going to create an ad that has sprinters in it and if you want to be accurate then it needs black athletes. I apologize if this offends people. I do not see how it could because I consider people who have attained top flight status as track & field sprinters to be an amazing accomplishment. Sure you have to be born with God-given ability. But after that you need to dedicate yourself and train your body to become a sprinter. I do not see anything that is wrong with that.

Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell is considered the fastest man in the world today after setting a new world record time of 9.77 seconds a few years ago. The last white man to be known as the world's fastest was Armin Hary of the former West Germany. He accomplished this in a meet in Zunich in 1960. That was 47-years ago.

And, the last white man to win Olympic gold in the 100 metre dash was Allan Wells of Scotland in the 1980 Moscow Olympics. It should be noted that America and Canada boycotted those games because of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. If you want a legit winner of the Olympic 100 metre dash you have to go back to 1972 with Russian Valeri Borzov.

Now you get deeper with this ad and say that the Caucasian man with the black athletes is a theme of slavery. This is where the stupid part comes in. Any professional working at Intel or supplying work to Intel just would not go there unless they are stupid. I would have pulled the ad too, but I would have done it on the basis of stupidity.

One quick hit before I go. SAS who has been struggling to establish a channel has replaced its channel chief Miles Mahoney with Russ Cobb, the senior director of corporate and product marketing.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 8/2/07, 10:30 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

The most influential tech product -- not

According to a survey of tech professionals by CompTIA, Microsoft's Internet Explorer was named the most influential tech product in the last 25 years by 66 per cent of its respondents.

Microsoft Word came in second at 56 per cent. Wait a second here. Doesn't 66 per cent and 56 per cent add up to 122 per cent? Now, math is not my strong point, but CompTIA's figures do not add up.

Coming in third was Windows at 50 per cent. Tied for fourth was the iPod and Excel at 49 per cent. And, rounding out the top ten are: Blackberry at 39 per cent, Adobe Photoshop at 35 per cent, McAfee Virus Scan at 32 per cent, Netscape Navigatior at 31 per cent, and the Palm Pilot at 31 per cent.

CompTIA says in a release that 471 tech professionals responded to the survey. If you forget the math for a moment I have to take issue with the results. Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator should have a place in the top ten, but to not have any email program just puzzles me to no end. Email is the killer app for our generation and to not have that listed by tech professionals astounds me.

Similar to Guttenberg's press, email started a whole new wave of communication. I also take issue with McAfee Virus Scan. I am not saying the product is irrelevant, but Symantec Norton Anti-Virus outsells it by a wide margin so how can it be outpolled? I am also surprised that point products such as Excel and Photoshop did so well since they are not used by everyone on the planet such as Word.

The iPod surprised me a bit. It is an MP3 player and there are hundreds of MP3 players on the market, but for its future potential as an information carrying device I can see why it is on the list.

Finally, if we are taking about 25 years that puts us back to 1982. and I believe the IBM PC was introduced in 1981 and the Mac in 1984. How those two products did not crack the line up makes me wonder just who were these 471 tech professionals CompTIA surveyed.

One quick hit before I go. Markham, Ont.-based DMTI Spatial has appointed John Sorrell as its director of marketing.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 8/1/07, 10:00 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

I'm back

Well, I'm back. I took some time off to take the wife and the kids to Nottawasaga Inn and Resort in Alliston, Ont. If you are not from Ontario, Alliston is where the Honda plant is.

A nice little town. It was the home of Frederick Banting, the Canadian who discovered insulin. The one thing I noticed about kids, and I'm speaking of my own and others who were on vacation at the same time, is that even though there is a provincial park with a beach kids would rather swim or play in the indoor pool at the resort.

And I can't say that I blame them. The indoor pool has clean water, a water slide, a water tree and a hot tub. The beach does have sand, but that is about it. The water is murky and filled with other un-pleasantries.

Now when I was a kid I couldn't care less what shape the beach was in. But times have sure changed. And I really can't blame kids these days for wanting something better.

Speaking of something better I have to give credit to the people at Cisco Systems for organizing a fantastic conference at Networkers at Cisco Live in Anaheim. I was there last week and it is a first rate conference with lots of helpful sessions. John Chambers, the company CEO made an appearance and I have to say he is one of very few who attend all of his company's shows. Customers and partner see this and appreciate it.

Now, on to the closing night party held somewhere in San Juan Capistrano. I say that because the bus driver got lost getting us there. He ventured into three residential neighbourhoods and somehow managed to hit three dead ends before finally finding the place.

Kiss, the seventies face painted rock band that created acid rock, performed to the delight of the over 40 crowd who for one night went back in time to 1978 and put on face paint and pretended and rock truly triumphed over disco. What I also found entertaining were the all female tribute bands that opened up for Kiss. Zefferella, AC/D She and The Iron Maidens were terrific.

Credit to Paul Stanley, lead singer of Kiss for welcoming Cisco customers and also saying that this was a corporate gig, but it did not matter for him or the band because the crowd was filled with freaks and he was right.

One quick hit before I go. It is funny what you miss when you are away. Take for example, Kevin Murai leaving Ingram Micro. He is doing it for family reasons. He is moving back to his home town of Toronto.

You see, no matter how great the job is in high tech you have to live in this Shangri-La land called Silicon Valley. And, the valley is made up of people from other parts of the world. The only affiliation they have is with their respective companies and not the community. So even though the weather and the lifestyle of places such as San Francisco, San Jose and area, LA and area and Orange County, where Murai worked, are appealing the sense of community and I mean people community is lost there.

I wish Murai the best in his trip back home.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 7/30/07, 10:35 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

John Chambers on healthcare

I have had the pleasure of interviewing and listening to John Chambers for more than 17 years now and his is a brilliant mind and it is no surprise to me that Cisco is a worldwide leader. I noticed his smarts from the first day I met him in Toronto during the old Comdex Canada conference.

Yesterday Chambers met with several members of IT press here at the Networkers at Cisco Live conference in Anaheim, Calif. Chambers has talked extensively about his parents, both doctors, for a long time and I thought about asking him a question about the healthcare system.

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has made some headlines recently with his latest movie Sicko about the poor state of the healthcare system in the U.S. and in Canada. He believes France has the best healthcare in the world.

So I ask Chambers about this and here is my exact question:

“Both your parents are doctors and given the recent news made by Michael Moore's Sicko documentary on the state of healthcare in the U.S. and in my home country of Canada doing poorly can you and Cisco take on this issue from a technology standpoint to improve healthcare?”

To my surprise, Chambers stood up and quickly walked towards me. I was sitting at the very end of the room. I thought this was really strange. Why is this man walking towards me? Did he not appreciate my question? Is his angry that I mentioned his parents?

All these thoughts raced through my head as he approached.

I tensed up a bit as he walked around me to get to the refreshment table behind me for a bottle of water. He then quickly walked back to his seat in the front and answered my question. I have to say I did not expect that and obviously worried for nothing.

His answer, by the way, was that he believes that the network can help foster change and address the current healthcare challenges not just in North American, but in other parts of the world. Chambers thinks that it will be an architectural play rather than a individual product one to improve medical records and capture data in remote clinics, for example, and transfer that data to the best doctors available.

He also said that process should also be done in the home and with Telepresence patients can talk to the best doctors and also doctors can talk to other doctors to share in best practices. He added that the barriers to healthcare today were initially put up for good reasons, but they are slowing down and only the implementation of technology can fix that.

One quick hit before I go. I have said this before, but I love the fact that John Chambers name drops. Maybe it is because I like to name drop too. At the Networkers at Cisco Live conference Chambers dropped these names: U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former British prime minister Tony Blair, current British prime minister Gordon Brown, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, prime minister of India Dr. Manmoham Singh, and prime minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Another name he mentioned was Tony Bates. He called him a rising star at Cisco.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 7/16/07, 8:00 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Microsoft's partner party evaluation

I was really excited as a sports fan to be at Coors Field, the home of the Colorado Rockies baseball club, for Microsoft's send off celebration at its Worldwide Partner Conference.

Let me get the negatives out of the way first. There was no field access. Security basically roped out people from the field. Dean Guest, a Canadian partner, was a little sad that he could not run the bases. There were no bases at the park, but the dream is still there. Guest told me that the security person informed him he could run the bases, but it would cost him four nights in jail. I can see one night being worth it, but not four.

Having a party at a stadium is not new to Microsoft. Its send off party when the conference was held in Toronto was at the SkyDome, now Rogers Centre, and people could go a run the bases there. The only problem at the dome was that if you tried to do that you would more than likely hit 40 people before you got to second base.

Now that the negatives are out of the way, I really enjoyed the party. They had three cover bands: Neil Diamond, Abba, and U2. I liked the name of the Abba cover band: Bjorn Again. You should have seen the fake sideburns on the Diamond wannabe and faux Bono acknowledged the Canadians in the crowd.

The bands were a lot of fun, but I have to hand it to Allison Watson, Microsoft's channel chief. She was front and centre this night dancing with the faux Bono and the rest. If you think about it she is a high profile executive and for her to let her hair down and have fun with the rest of the partners, I think, sends the right message.

The food was great. I had ballpark franks with ice cream. The beverages were distinctly Coors. The weather was drab, but that added to the baseball atmosphere.

No word on what the party will be for next year. The internal debate still continues on where the venue will be. The front runner is Las Vegas, which loyal readers know is my cottage. But there is a good chance the conference will be held somewhere in Europe with cities such as Paris, Barcelona and somewhere in Germany as possible destinations. We shall see.

A few quick hits before I go. Ingram Micro Canada PR practitioner Lizanne McReelis had her last day at the distributor yesterday. She is leaving to go and work for Strategic Objectives, a Toronto based PR firm that promotes products such as Cashmere Toilet paper. They have other clients as well.

In the be careful of what you wish for category, Nortel president and CEO Mike Zafirovski has been nominated to U.S. president George W. Bush's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. Zafirovski said that was very proud of this honour.

Finally, I will be going on vacation. I will be taking the wife and kids to some place up North for a little R&R. Me and my wife are city folk and have no clue about cottage life, but we are willing to give it a go. I will let you know how it went. But there will be no blogs from me for a little while.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 7/18/07, 8:30 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

The computer virus turns 25

I recently attended a luncheon celebrating the 25th anniversary of security vendor Symantec, so perhaps it's apropos that this year is also the anniversary of the creation of the first computer virus.

One wonders if Symantec would be what it is today, or if companies like McAfee or Trend Micro would even be around, were it not for a high school kid from Pittsburgh named Richard Skrenta.

In 1982 he created “Elk Cloner” which is credited with being the first computer virus to spread outside the single computer or lab it was created in. Somewhat ironically given Apple's reputation for high security today, the first computer virus attached itself to the Apple DOS 3.0 OS and was spread via floppy disk.

From Wikipedia:
This virus was originally a joke, created by the high school student and put onto a game. The disk could only be used 49 times. The game was set to play, but release the virus on the 50th time of starting the game. Only this time, instead of playing the game, it would change to a blank screen that read a poem about the virus named Elk Cloner. The poem that showed up on the screen is as follows: “It will get on all your disks. It will infiltrate your chips. Yes it's Cloner! It will stick to you like glue. It will modify RAM too. Send in the Cloner!” The computer would then be infected.

From these humble beginnings the world of computer viruses was born, evolving through today to a wide spectrum of threats from Trojans and root kits to malware and spyware.

After this auspicious start Skrenta stayed on the straight and narrow, working for vendors like Commodore and Sun and becoming one of the founders of the Open Directory project. But the seeds he planted would sprout.

One wonders if, when he set out to mess with some computer games to annoy his friends, Skrenta knew he would be spawning an industry worth billions of dollars.

I hope Symantec at least saves him a piece of cake.

-- Posted by Jeff Jedras, 7/13/07, 11:30 AM, jjedras@itworldcanada.com

Commodore making a comeback

I couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic this morning with the news Commodore is coming back to the North American market, this time with a premium gaming computer.

Apparently Commodore Gaming has already debuted in Europe and a North American debut is scheduled for August, to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the venerable classic Commodore 64. Gee, am I really that old?

There will be four different models, from entry level gaming to extreme gaming. Gone is the old Amiga OS; the machines are Windows-based with Intel processors an Nvidia GeForce graphics cards.

I take it the move to Windows means no more fun commands like “Load “*”,8,1” to launch applications. Kids these days, they have it too easy. Point and click is for wimps.

Only European pricing is available at the moment, which ranges from US$2083 to US$5565, depending on the model. Distribution will be both online and through the retail channel.

It will be interesting to see how Commodore fares with the venture. For those of a certain generation Commodore is a venerable name remembered fondly, for the younger folks that are big computer gamers today Commodore is a newcomer.

Growing-up my first computer was a Commodore 64C, and while I've had a few computers since when it comes to gaming fun I have to say it remains my favourite.

There were hundreds of games available and back in those days. Game...sharing, shall we say, was a lot easier. I spent hours sinking Russians in Red Storm Rising, shooting them out of the sky in F-15 Strike Eagle or beating them at the Olympics in Winter Games (I was a bobsled champion). Despite all the modern graphics that make modern games like Command and Conquer and Civilization lots of fun, nothing beats those old classics for sheer enjoyment value.

So welcome back Commodore, and good luck. And we're waiting on you Atari...

-- Posted by Jeff Jedras, 7/11/07, 11:30 AM, jjedras@itworldcanada.com

iNough with the iPhone already

Before joining the team at CDN I was with our sister publication, ComputerWorld Canada, and among my responsibilities I was lucky enough to manage the new products section.

I say lucky because that gave me the opportunity to request demos of various new products hitting the market. And among my favourite devices to demo were converged mobile devices, like the Blackberry and the Palm Treo. For a self-professed gadget freak there's not much more fun than not only getting to play with the latest and greatest, but getting paid to do it.

I have to say though, if Apple or a carrier (when they find one in Canada, the betting is on Rogers) were to call me up today and offer me the chance to demo the iPhone for a month I'd probably have to say no thanks. Of course Apple, you're welcome to try to prove me wrong.

But while I'd normally jump at the chance to get my hands on one, the unending iPhone hype has really turned me off. Perhaps it's my contrarian nature to go against the flow. But while Apple has always been heavy marketers, this time it seems the hype machine with the accompanying media coverage has gone overboard.

I think I reached the tipping-point the day before the launch. I'm a big fan of NBC's The Office (the original BBC version is also great, but in a different way) and the day before the iPhone debut NBC had an Office marathon, showing three classic episodes. For me, must see TV.

But for an hour and a half, during each commercial break there was at least one iPhone commercial. Sometimes more than one. Inexplicably, my blood pressure seemed to rise with each one. By the end of the evening my transformation from iLover to iNnoyed was complete.

And I have to wonder if Apple is turning anyone else off with its heavy marketing? I'm guessing not, given the fact they've sold 500,000 of the things already. One thing that's clear though is that despite all the hype we hear about things like viral marketing, good old fashioned saturation bombing is far from dead.

So, send Stephen Colbert my iPhone, he really seems to want to get his hands on one. My new PocketPC does everything an iPhone can for a fraction of the price.

One quick note before I sign off. Toronto's Sigma Systems has appointed Gary Gibbs as its vice-president of channel development, with a mandate to accelerate the company's global partner initiatives.

Working out of Sigma's UK office, Gary will be work to selectively recruit new partners worldwide with a focus on building key relationships with system integrators, network equipment providers as well as complimentary software and application system vendors.

He comes to Sigma from Intec where he was vice-president, global channels and alliances.

-- Posted by Jeff Jedras, 7/10/07, 10:00 AM, jjedras@itworldcanada.com

Walmart's Dell specs revealed

When CDN covered the news Dell would be building a desktop for sale in store by Walmart one thing that both the vendor and the retailer refused to go into details about was the specifications of the $597.88 (monitor extra) machine.

It seemed the retailer felt that Walmart shoppers would see a desktop PC as a commodity like milk and cheese, with considerations like memory and processor speed considered secondary to price.

This strategy was confirmed by a trip to Walmart shortly after the launch to find the machine prominently displayed in store, sans specs. It did seem an unusual choice, given that specs were displayed for six notebook PCs for sale in the electronics department, including machines from Acer, Compaq, Toshiba, HP, Lenovo and Acer.

A trip to my local Walmart on the weekend however revealed that the policy has changed and the Dell specs are now displayed although interestingly, not with the Dell PC itself.

The Dell desktop, along with a snazzy flat panel Acer monitor, is still on display on a computer desk in the aisle outside the electronics department, no specs to be seen. But inside the electronics department Walmart has become a mini-Future Shop, with an aisle newly cleared and four new Compaq Presario towers for sale ranging from $467 to $649, along with a few Acer monitors. One Presario system comes bundled with a Compaq monitor for $798, the rest are sold separately.

The specs are displayed for all the Compaq machines. And interestingly, beneath one of the Presarios hung the specs for Walmart's Dell Dimension E521, which was lonely by itself outside the department in the aisle. Confused me a bit at first since it looked like the specs belonged to the Presario, although it was probably an error by the local staff.

Anyway, the specs Walmart didn't want to talk about originally are:

Processor: AMD Althon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 3600+

RAM: 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz-2DIMMs

Hard Drive: 250GB Serial ATA Drive (7200 rpm) with DataBurst Cache

Drive: 16x DVD+/-RW

Multimedia: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics CPU and Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

OS: Windows Vista Home Edition

Integrated Ethernet 10/100 Network Interface

And a one year manufacturer's warranty.

Perhaps they decided selling computers isn't like selling cheese after all. Given the expansion of the desktop models they're offering though to include four Compaq towers Walmart may feel it's onto something here.

On another note, reader Chris Packman writes about a CDN Now piece from Thursday on the A3 and A4 printer market. It seems all paper sizes are not created equal and A4 is not 8.5” by 11”, which we North Americans call letter size. Or at least in most of the world it's not. Chris writes A3 and A4 are metric paper standards used in most of the world save the U.S. and Canada:

I'm very aware of this as I once worked within a Standards group at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. at a time when Canada had internationally agreed to 'go metric', at least in paper sizes. We 'jumped the gun' and began using A4 (roughly eight and one quarter inches by eleven and three-quarters inches) for our Engineering Standards and Practices manuals and material. Sadly, the Canadian government stalled on pushing metric paper standards - in which paper paper height is always 1.414 (root of two) times the width. This fixed height/width relation makes it easy to scale things, unlike the 'old' system we N. Americans still use.

Thanks for the note Chris.

-- Posted by Jeff Jedras, 7/9/07, 11:00 AM, jjedras@itworldcanada.com

The B's have it at Autodesk

I was writing my Close Up feature on Carl Bass, the president and CEO of Autodesk Corp., the other day and I decided to check out his bio on the Web site. And, to my astonishment the company's top six executives have last names starting with the letter “b”.

The are: Carol Bartz, executive chairman of the board, Bass, Ken Bado, executive vice-president, worldwide sales, global accounts, Jan Becker, senior vice-president, human resources and corporate real estate, Jay Bhatt, senior vice-president, architecture, engineering and construction solutions and Chris Bradshaw, senior vice president, worldwide marketing.

Now, Autodesk has 13 officers and directors and the remaining do not have last names that start with the letter “b”, but its senior vice-president, manufacturing solutions Robert Kross, his nickname is “Buzz.”

Moving to Autodesk's board of directors they have four members whose last name starts with a “b”. This includes Bartz and Bass along with Mark Bertelsen of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati and Crawford Beveridge, the long time Sun Microsystems executive.

All these “b” names remind me of the 1982 Miami Dolphins defense, which was called the Killer Bs. If your memory is failing you that 1982 Dolphin defense consisted of Bob Baumhower, Bill Barnet, Lyle and Glenn Blackwood, Kim Bokamper, Doug Betters and Bob Brudzinski. I know what you are thinking. I've only listed seven players and it takes 11 men to make up a NFL defense. You are right, but the other players did not have a last name that started with a “b”. That team had a wicked defense, but fell short of winning the Super Bowl to eventual champion Washington Redskins. And similar to Autodesk they too do not have an entire executive branch made up of people with a last name that starts with “B”.

The killers Bs was also the name of a popular wrestling tag team during the same era of the Dolphins defense. Those wrestlers are: B. Brian Blair and “Jumpin'” Jim Brundzell.

One quick hit before I go. Steven Mihaylo, the founder of Inter-Tel, has forced the company's board to delay a proposed US$273 merger with Mitel Networks until July 23, raising questions of whether management has the votes to seal the deal that Mitel believes will give it better access to the U.S. market.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 7/6/07, 10:30 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Is nothing sacred?

Hardly a week goes by that a press release doesn't cross my desk citing the results of a survey on the productivity of Canadian workers. And as the surveys are sponsored by IT companies their solution to our productivity woes is always simple: buy more technology.

I don't deny there is a link between technology investment and productivity. Indeed, I think the link is pretty clear, although technology is but one influencer among many when it comes to the productivity of Canadian workers. Still, IT is important.

I had to shake my head today though at a release from Intel of Canada.

The folks at Intel commissioned Decima Research to survey mass transit commuters in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver and they found half of the respondents spend 240 hours per year traveling to and from the office. If just 40 minutes of the average one-hour daily commute were converted to productive work time, they said, we would eliminate the hours worked gap between ourselves and our American cousins.

“It's not about working longer, it's about Canadian commuters making better use of their time,” said Doug Cooper, Country Manager, Intel of Canada. “Taking that down time commuting on mass transit and converting it to productive time potentially reduces the need to stay later at the office, provides flexibility for employees and increases productivity for the employer.”

And how to convert that transit downtime into productive work time? Buy portable devices like notebooks, of course. Just balance your laptop on your knees and bang-out that report while you're on the subway or the Go-Train.

I'm sorry, but is nothing sacred anymore? The commute should be reserved for the newspaper, a paperback or your MP3 player, not the quarterly report. Our workdays are expanding enough as it is. Some lines need to be drawn.

And when it comes to these reports on productivity the value of downtime is nearly always overlooked. If I work another 30 minutes on the train in the morning am I really more productive? I'd wager taking that time to mentally relax and recharge will make me more productive when I do get to the office.

With mobile technology making it easier and easier to connect to the office, and increasing the pressure to work outside of business hours, companies would be wise to set boundaries, and clearly define their expectations. Burning-out your employees won't lead to productivity gains. Indeed, the result will be just the opposite.

Sorry Intel, I'll stick with the Beatles on my commute.

-- Posted by Jeff Jedras, 7/5/07, 10:00 AM, jjedras@itworldcanada.com

A million bucks for piracy whistleblower

I love the way society changes its behaviour toward certain people. Ever since the Enron scandal the term whistleblower is being used instead of rat.

Whistleblower is a much nicer term than rat. In the past, a rat was usually someone who squealed on another bad guy.

For example, Sammy “the bull” Gravano, former underboss of the Gambino Crime Family headed by (Don) John Gotti, was called a rat. But Sherron Watkins, whose story unearthed the Enron Scandal, is called a whistleblower, not a rat.

The reason, I think, is that former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay would not use the term rat publicly even though they may have thought that. And the jury is out on if both Skilling and Lay are as bad as, lets say, Gotti and Gravano.

Today comes news that the Business Software Alliance (BSA) will be awarding a cool $1 million to whistleblowers that divulge copyright infringement in their offices. Even the BSA has a new term for the rat/whistleblower. They called them tipsters. Now I thought the tipster was a fellow you met at the race track.

One quik hit before I go. And this one comes from the Ether. Bob Metcafe, the man who invented Ethernet computing and started 3Com, has stepped in as interim CEO at GreenFuel Technologies.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 7/3/07, 11:30 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

The IT executive pay scale

The top five IT related company CEOs in terms of payout or total compensation are as follows: Terry Semel of Yahoo!, Larry Ellison of Oracle, John W. Thompson at Symantec, John Chambers of Cisco Systems and Kevin Rollins of Dell Computer.

This ranking is compiled by Forbes magazines and takes into account salary, bonus and stock gains.

The first thing I noticed about the top five was that Semel and Rollins no longer have a job, not that it will matter to them since Semel got $231 million in total compensation, while Rollins netted $39 million.

And, people complain about athletes and what they get paid.

Now the odd thing about these pay outs is that all five earned under a million dollars in salary. Only Ellison was close to a million dollars per annum at $980,000. He ended up making $75 million. The same goes for John W. Thompson and Chambers who received total compensation of $72 million and $63 million respectively.

In all cases the vast majority of the compensation were in stock gains. So if a chief executive can drive up the stock price, which is very hard to do, they are amply rewarded. So I think in the end it is fair compensation for all except for Rollins.

The odd ball on the Forbes list is Apple CEO Steve Jobs. His salary is zero and his bonus is zero. But he owns 627.5 million shares in the company.

A few quick hits before I go. C-Com Satellite Systems Inc. has appointed Edward Walter Koenig III to its board of directors.

PR practitioner Amie Hoffner of Primera Technology is leaving the company to be the new head of PR at Corel's digital media division. Welcome to Canada Amie and happy Canada Day.

And, I also want to wish all the readers a happy Canada Day.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/29/07, 10:30 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

High tech expats please come back

This Saturday June, 30th an entourage from Waterloo, Ont., will participate in the Digital Moose Lounge's 8th annual Canada Day family picnic in Woodside, Calif.

Waterloo was awarded Top Intelligent Community of the Year in a worldwide competition by New York's Intelligent Communities Forum.

Iain Klugman, president and CEO of Communitech: Waterloo Region Technology Association, said that the network of expats living in Silicon Valley is a fantastic place to find tech talent to fill the more than 2,000 open career opportunities in Waterloo.

Klugman believes that these expats will one day wake up and figure out it will make financial sense to move back home. Mr. Klugman, I think they know this already. You should talk to them about lifestyle changes. That might make a more compelling discussion about moving back home.

There are more than 450 high tech firms in the Waterloo region such as RIM, Sandvine, and Open Text. They are all looking for IT professionals.

This is a great tactic because there are people who are in the valley who will come back home given the right opportunity. Let's face it. If you are young and upwardly mobile Silicon Valley is the place you want to be. But targeting older IT professionals to come back is a smart move on the region's part. I wish them good luck.

Two quick hits before I go. Rolla P. Huff is the new CEO of Earthlink. He takes over for Mike Lunsford.

PR practitioner Sara Cooke of Laplink will start her year-long maternity leave on Canada Day. I wish her good luck as well. Aarti Vaid will be replacing her.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/28/07, 8:30 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Dell goes pink

It is still surreal for me to write about Dell in a positive way. I'm not saying what comes next will be positive, but I find the company's new strategy in industrial design very interesting.

The company is producing pink coloured notebooks along with colours such as yellow, red, black, blue and espresso. Is espresso a colour? I guess so. A month ago my wife and I purchased shutters and one of our choices was espresso along with pacific teal green and siena. But I digress. Dell is at least four years behind in this concept. Voodoo PC of Calgary, which was acquired last year by HP, was making high end notebooks with Lamborghini reds and yellows. Acer made a Ferrari red notebook with official paint from the car manufacturer.

Even Dell's colour palette does not go far enough considering black and blue were two colours that have been used by laptop makers for a long time.

Having said all this I think it is a good move. However, it does not go far enough in my opinion. What Dell is best known for is building to order notebooks. Instead of producing a pink notebook in hopes that someone purchases it why not let the customer decide what colours they want.

Two quick hits today. Both about Ingram Micro. Keith Bradley, the North American president, was supposedly in Toronto to interview candidates for the vacant Canadian president job.

Ingram also appointed a new leader of worldwide human resources. The distributor has promoted Lynn Jolliffe to senior vice president of human resources, upon the retirement of Matthew A. Sauer.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/27/07, 11:06 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Channel chief's vacation is not news

Yesterday CDN Now posted that Allison Watson, Microsoft's channel chief was going on a six month sabbatical. These sabbaticals are given at Microsoft and I have to tell you I am very jealous.

But CRN in the U.S. and in Canada had it as its lead story with commentary from channel sources. Now I know the reporter and he is a great guy and fine writer, but come on. How can Watson's vacation matter to the channel? I know she is in charge of Microsoft's channel and potentially impacts every channel partner on Earth but still, can't she take time off?

Now, Watson in our circles is a mini-celeb of sorts. So it is interesting, I will give them that. But I think we should all leave it alone. If we don't we will go down this slippery slope other magazines such as People have done.

I really do not care that Paris Hilton was in jail or is leaving jail. I find it horrible that more people recognize her as the face of Hilton than her great grandfather Conrad Hilton, who I consider to be an American pioneer of business.

This is what we have created. We find what Watson is doing in her personal life more interesting than what she's doing in her work life. It should be the other way around.

Two quick hits before I go. The 17th World Conference on Disaster Management will be held in Canada for the first time at Toronto's Metro Convention Centre.

And I'll see you all at the annual Chinese Canadian Computer Association golf tournament today.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/26/07, 9:06 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Where are we with wireless?

We're No. 8 in wireless. Should Canadians be proud of that ranking? I am not sure because I have a huge problem with this Ipsos global wireless usage survey.

My problem is one of perception.

South Africa is a country that has basically been in turmoil and its citizens under siege for decade or so. South Africa is on top with 62 per cent. I should note before I go on that Ipsos surveyed 9,000 people in 18 countries for this online survey sponsored by Lexmark International.

Back to South Africa. An estimated 250,000 Caucasian South Africans have left the country, according to The Economist, over the past 13 years. During that time, violent crime has increased by 33 per cent and South Africa is going through a brain drain, especially in the IT sector. Most of these people have left for Australia, the U.K. and the U.S.

I worked with one South African ex-pat for four years and she would tell me horror stories of life in arguably one of the more beautiful areas of the world.

I do not want this blog to be at all a political or ethnic debate. My point here is when you look at any survey on IT related products or issues the G7 nations are always near the top.

But in this survey we have South Africa at No. 1, Mexico at No. 2, Brazil at No. 3, and Poland at 6.

On the flip side G7 countries are ranked this way: Italy at No. 4, Spain at No. 5, Canada at No. 8, France at No. 9, UK at No. 10, the U.S. at No. 12, Japan was 13th, and Germany was dead last at 18. Now we have discussed Germany's problems in a previous blog, but you have to wonder how Ipsos crunched these figures.

I will argue that countries such as South Africa, Mexico, and Brazil have major social and economic problems that are more vital that wireless adoption.

I want to be clear and fair here. Lexmark sponsored this survey because their market position is that more people will be doing wireless printing and I support that trend. I interviewed Lexmark CEO Paul Curlander and I think he has positioned this company on the right track. Some analysts have disagreed with Lexmark's positioning, but that is why we have chocolate and vanilla and only time will tell if Curlander is right. But that is a story for another day.

Also, I want to point out that Ipsos ranked these countries in terms of percentage of respondents using their wireless networks for streaming music or video, which leads me to believe they questioned tech-savvy people. If they did that I do not believe it would tell an accurate story of wireless adoption around the global. And, what about other countries such as Russia, China, South Korea, Isreal, Egypt, Austria, the Czech Republic, Portugal and India, don't they count?

One quick hit before I go. Microsoft's channel chief Allison Watson will be taking a six-month sabbatical some time after the worldwide partner conference in Denver.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/25/07, 12:06 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

More on those supposed Russian built computers

I got another emailer today thinking that those failed international space station computers may actually be Russian after all.

Leonard wrote: it is entirely possible that the computers really are Russian, purchased as surplus items from what was the Soviet space program. The cases definitely had a "Russian" appearance.

I went online to the BBC which has been covering this story extensively and they reported what Martin, another emailer wrote yesterday, that the computers are from Bremin, Germany supplier EADS. Now there is video of the story, but for some reason my computer can't play it in either Media Player or Real Player so I am sort of stuck here.

If any reader got a chance to see the video let me know about it.

A few quick hit before I go. Intermec has been very busy lately with new product announcements and new executive appointments. The company has just named Barry Issberner as its new vice president of global marketing. Issberner has been with Nokia for several years.

Big day for Symantec Canada next week as it celebrates 25 years in Canada.

And, a little bird told me that Autodesk CEO Carl Bass will be in town next week as well as that subsidiary celebrates 25 years in Canada.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/22/07, 11:06 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Not quite Russian built computers

A couple of readers kindly emailed me this week to inform me that the computers that failed onboard the international space station were actually built in Germany and not Russia.

If you recall I found it worrisome that they would use Russian computers knowing what we know now and how the whole USSR infrastructure worked.

Martin from Regina found out that the international space stations primary computers, which are located in the Russian command module Zvezda, were supplied by EADS Astrium Space Transportation in Bremen, Germany, under contract to the European Space Agency.

Another emailer thought they might be Russian designed but not built by Ruskies.

The whole Germany think boggles my mind. Germany was known for its precision in manufacturering. Germany was so ahead of the game, as a country, that other nations studied them.

One of my colleagues in Germany told me last year that things are not the same anymore ever since the Berlin Wall fell. There are many previous East Germans that are poorly educated and do not have the skill level of other growing countries such as Russia, India, China and even Brazil if you can believe that.

Germany and its CE and high tech sector are in decline and it is going to take a generational change to get this once great manufacturing country back to where it once was.

And to Martin who kindly emailed me lets hope the Roughriders play the Argoes in the Grey Cup in Toronto this year. I was at the game the last time the Roughriders won the Grey Cup, which was in Toronto, back in 1991 and that was the best CFL game I have ever attended.

One quick hit before I go. Intermec Technologies, Inc. has appointed Phil Danner as vice president of engineering. Danner succeeds Mike Abel, who has taken a position as vice president, program management with the company. Danner joins Intermec after a 15-year career with General Electric.

p> -- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/21/07, 1:06 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

The biggest tech flops of all time

CDN sister publication Computerworld pored over archival magazines to choose some products the vendors would like to forget. The publication would like you to vote on your favourite or non-favourite.

Now ComputerWorld listed them in alphabetical order, but if I was choosing the Apple Newton would top my list of biggest flops for sure. I attended the launch of Apple Newton, which was at the time going to revolutionize computing as we know it.

The place was the News Theatre on the fashionable Esplanade in downtown Toronto. The media was promised review units as soon as they were available. The curtain was raised. The participants on stage were introduced. The hype machine was in full gear. Apple Canada built a crescendo of anticipation with the media and others in attendance. And, then the demo started. The Newton PDA type device failed its first test in front of a national audience. It simply did not work. To the credit of the demonstrator he simply kept on with the demo even though nothing was being picked up by the stylus.

Newton, as a concept, was ahead of its time but that blunder put a sour taste in the mouth of many IT decision makers in Canada.

Other flops listed are: digital audio tape, Divx, dot-bombs, E-books, IBM PCjr., Internet Currency, Iridium, Microsoft Bob, the Net PC, the paperless office, push technology, smart appliances, virtual reality, Apple's Lisa, Dreamcast, NeXT, OS/2, Qube, speech recognition, and WebTV.

Again you can vote at www.computerworld.com.

One quick hit before I go. Mike Sharun has just been hired as the new managing director of EMC Canada. Sharun, who has more than 25 years of experience in the IT sector, served as director of Western Canada for EMC Canada. That region enjoyed a four-fold increase in revenue between 2000 and 2006. Prior to EMC, Sharun worked at SAP Canada and Oracle Canada.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/20/07, 11:06 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

A sneak peek at Dell inside Wal-Mart

I had one of my spies go into a Wal-Mart location somewhere in Toronto on Father's Day to take a look at the new Dell Dimension PC on sale.

For those of you who do not know. Wal-Mart was the first Canadian retailer to showcase a Dell PC on its shelves.

The product was priced at $583 for the unit itself. The monitor was extra and it was not from Dell, but Acer. It was the lowest priced desktop PC on display. However, it was the only desktop PC on display. This particular Wal-Mart only had notebook computers available from Toshiba, HP and Acer. They were all locked away in a glass display case.

Now my spy thought it strange that specs for the Dell Dimension PC was absent. If you recall Dell is building a specific desktop PC for Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart only. It was the only bit of news I could not get out of Dell Canada or Wal-Mart.

My spy also said that there was no extra promotion inside the story. The Dell desktop was located inside the electronics section as promised by Wal-Mart who is trying to beef up that area with more low cost selections.

Now you can debate whether it is wise for both Dell and Wal-Mart to lists specs or not. I do not think it is that important. People who are looking to buy a PC at Wal-Mart are not that interested in specs. What they are interested in is obtaining what they want at the lowest possible price. And, at $583 that is, in my mind, a low price. Now the specs may make that price a great deal or not so much of a great deal, but I think to the Wal-Mart consumer it does not matter 99 per cent of the time.

In other Wal-Mart news, MSN Money had a story the other day that the retailer lost approximately US$3 billion a year as a result of shoplifting and employee theft.

I think US$3 billion is an out-of-this-world type of figure. It really seems hard to believe. I understand that Wal-Mart has thousands of stores across North America, but that is a lot of theft.

Other reasons for the shrinkage are paperwork errors and supplier fraud. The other day I had some yo-yo stop me in the parking lot of Home Depot to tell me he had a home theatre system in the back of his SUV, which he obtained because of paperwork and shipping errors for free and he was willing to sell it to me at an incredible low price. This incident helped me properly illustrate to my five-year old daughter who a stranger is and why she should never speak to one.

Back to Wal-Mart's problems. Analysts interviewed by MSN Money believe that Wal-Mart no longer prosecuting minor cases of shoplifting has empowered the shoplifting rings and may have led to the increase in shrinkage.

If this problem persists, Wal-Mart may be forced to increase its prices on those Dell desktops along with other items. I am not saying it will. I am only saying it might.

Two quick hits before I go. Friend of CDN and Route1 executive Gregg Jorritsma is leaving the company to go after a new business idea. Jorritsma and the team there at Route1 have done a great job in changing the mindset of the marketplace in Canada. I wish Gregg all the best.

A strange appointment notice comes from Vancouver-based Infowave Software, who has appointed Richard Hoy as its president and interim CEO. Infowave makes enterprise-class mobile applications. What I do not get about this appointment is why is Hoy given the president's job, but can only be the CEO on an interim basis? It does not make any sense to me. I have never heard of this before.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/19/07, 2:06 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

The gloves are off

It is only US$12 million, which is basically pocket change for Bill Gates and crew, but it may mean tens of millions more in revenue if Microsoft is doing what I think they are doing.

It is a shrewd move for sure. Microsoft owns the Media Center operating system, but they do not make TVs. They will have Sichuan Changhong Electric, the company receiving this investment, make them TVs and other CE products.

Microsoft's brand is at an all time high right now, but in this new converged world it struggle against Apple in the CE market place. If you can imagine a MSTV of sorts with everything you need in terms of display, OS and PC hardware build in for $999 at Best Buy. It can be a pretty compelling argument.

Microsoft's hardware division is the least known of all of their units. The division has grown in a steady pace for many years just with keyboards, mice and recently Webcams. I do not think Microsoft want to make notebooks and desktops, but TVs is another animal.

There are still margins in the LCD TV market place. Microsoft also has channels in the form of 200,000 system builders and home networking integrators that may be interested in selling its MSTV.

Microsoft maybe late to market with this all-in-one TV product. The AppleTV was launched earlier this year. And, who knows how fast this Chinese company can come online with an MSTV. But, Microsoft may have the depth to overtake Apple again.

Beyond Apple Sony, Samsung and a host of other CE players should be worried about maintaining retailer store shelves when MSTV becomes available.

A lot of quick hits before I go. Pat Lance is no longer with Cisco Systems Canada.

Former Compaq Canada channel chief Ron Hulse has joined Samsung Canada in a director's role.

BrianHunter Inc., a Toronto-based ISV of HR software, announced that Don McCreesh has resigned as director of the company.

And, The Canadian Information Technology Providers Association (CITPA) will hold its general meeting June 21, at 4 o'clock at the Northern Micro offices on 3155 Swansea Cr. in Ottawa.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/18/07, 12:06 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Computers fail in deep space

News out of Houston confirms that Russian-built computers on board the International Space Station, somewhere orbiting the Earth, have failed.

The worse part of this is that these machines control the oxygen and water supplies. Of course they are trying to fix the problem and let's hope they do so in a timely fashion. The short term problem is that the NASA space shuttle Atlantis can't return home as scheduled. The long term problem is that the space station itself may have to be abandoned.

Is it just me or do the words “Russian-built computers” sound alarm bells? With all due respect to the former Soviet Union and the current regime in Moscow you cannot match North American-built technology to any other in the world.

And when it comes to mission critical systems and the international space station would have to be a mission critical system, and you have to equip it with the best the world has to offer.

The space station is a team effort with the U.S., Russian, Canadian, European and Japanese space agencies involved. I understand and support that each members has to contribute something, but you simply cannot have this type of IT situation.

This goes far beyond 5-9 computing. This is and should be 100 per cent computing. As far as I am concerned this is an embarrassment to the space agencies and I include Canada among them; they too as at fault as are the other partners.

I know it is easy for me to criticize from the cheap seats in Toronto. But I am sorry; anyone could have seen this coming as soon as they heard Russian-built computers.

One quick hit before I go. It seems a lot of CTO's are switching jobs recently. Canadian-based Opalis has named a new one, Charles Crouchman. This just goes to show that CTOs and CIO are no longer bulletproof in an organization. They have to provide the right technology today, make budget and increase employee productivity with the IT decisions they make.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/15/07, 10:36 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Black hatters convention coming north

The one thing I love about this industry and the channel community is its entrepreneurial spirit.

Take, for example, Brian Bourne, the president of CMS Consulting Inc. of Toronto. They are a Microsoft Gold partner and Bourne is spearheading the SECTOR show this November 20 to 21st.

The show, which stands for Security Education Conference Toronto, is mirrored after Silicon Valley's Black Hat conference, which ten years ago was attended by hackers and virus writers and is now a great conference for learning how the mind of some of these people work. It has big time sponsors such as Cisco Systems and Microsoft.

Bourne wants to do the same thing here with SECTOR, except he wants to ensure that it is more to do with educating solution providers than giving potential hackers a tutorial on malware.

He says their guest speakers are literally rock stars in the security community. People such as security authors Ira Winkler, Mark Russinovich, Mark Fabreau and none other than Johnny Long, the godfather of Google hacking, will be on hand to give their insight at the SECTOR show.

This conference is not your traditional trade show. Bourne says there will be nothing quite like it. He added it will be a good look at the dark side of computing and how attacks work and information like that.

I wish Bourne and the team at SECTOR the best of luck. Speaking from experience, flooring a conference is one of the toughest things to do in this industry. It is a credit to him for doing something such as SECTOR. Many would tell him to stick to being a security expert and leave the conference business to the professionals, but I do not think Bourne is doing this to make a tonne of money. I think he wants to achieve something else that will be more beneficial to the community in Canada.

One quick hit before I go. Websense Canada has its first channel chief in Chris Diomedi. Prior to joining Websense Canada, Diomedi was an executive at HP Canada and Corel.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/14/07, 10:36 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Veritas is back

It is funny to me anyways that Symantec has reintroduced the Veritas brand with its latest release of NetBackup. What makes this turn in strategy even more amusing is that the company did it at its Vision Conference, which used to be called Veritas Vision.

But this change in branding direction makes sense to me. Veritas was a good brand.

Customers and channel partners recognized it for quality software. Shelving it would have been a mistake given the fact that Symantec has a history for acquiring companies and keeping strong brand names such as Norton in play. Speaking of Norton, where in the world is Peter Norton? This man during the early 90s shared the IT spotlight with Bill Gates.

But I digress. I understand that a company such as Symantec cannot keep all of the brands that it has acquired. Keeping and successfully using Norton and now Veritas will help Symantec, especially on the availability side of its business. That is where Veritas had a virtual stranglehold on the market.

I never quite understood why computer companies shelved brands that worked in the past. For example, HP has never used the Apollo Computing brand. Apollo had a great name in this business at one time. Adobe is actually using it these days. I guess with permission from HP. I can't criticize HP that much because it still uses the Compaq brand on certain products.

One quick hit before I go. Westinghouse Digital Electronics announced that Monica Islas has joined the company as offering manager. Never heard of that title before.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/13/07, 10:36 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

A touchy subject

I was all set to blog about Apple's love-in at its Developers' Conference in San Francisco today. My other options included my take on Best Buy and Avaya, but all that came to a screeching halt this morning when I was informed my cousin in Italy lost her baby just after giving birth.

Supposedly, the baby, a boy, took his first breath and then he was gone.

Death is a touchy subject with me. I do not like to talk about it in any way. I think I have been very lucky in that department. Most of the people who have passed on in my life have lived in Italy. There have been a few deaths in the family here but not much.

Last week my good friend Gino's dad passed on. You may or may not know of his father the legendary Enrico Farina. Farina was one of the great Italian/English singers of his time. He was a chart topper along with greats such as Tony Bennett and Vic Damone.

I have to tell you it was hard seeing Gino during the wake. Death, I believe, provides the ultimate in perspective. After the news this morning, I could not care less about Apple, Best Buy, Avaya or any other company in the IT industry. And that too is hard for me because I have such a passion for this industry and the partner community that serves it.

But that is the thing about death. It slaps that smile right off your face.

One quick hit before I go. It looks like Linux veteran Tom Hanrahan, formerly of the Linux Foundation, will be Microsoft's main Open Source executive. He will be working with former Novell Americas president Susan Heystee, a Toronto native, who was appointed by Novell to manage its relationship with Microsoft.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/12/07, 10:06 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Formula 1's high tech sector

As promised I would like to give you a recap of my day at the races at the Montreal Grand Prix.

But before I do I want to say what a great city Montreal is. There were millions of people in for the race and the city did a great job in hosting them and providing a great time for these patrons on many streets within the city.

A lot of the race organizers, team officials and marketing people told me that Montreal is their favourite stop on the Formula 1 circuit. I was shocked to hear that these people would prefer it over Monaco, but it is great to hear that others love our country too. Sometimes I wish citizens would do the same, especially some citizens in the province of Quebec.

But I digress. I visited the pit lane and got a chance to meet team officials from AT&T Williams, along with Toro Rosso, MacLaren Mercedes, Scuderia Ferrari, and even teams I never heard of such as Spyker and Super Aguri.

I visited the garage and a quite cramped IT area where eight computer engineers worked on eight workstations built specifically by Lenovo for AT&T Williams. Their space was smaller than the width and length of a Formula 1 race car.

I can't imagine the pressure these engineers, mechanics, team officials and drivers are under. Everything is not just fast, but super fast and super precise where one mistake can cut literally seconds off a lap time, which may result in a finish where you are out of the points.

Several members of the AT&T Williams team told me that 80 per cent of the race car is made by technology and the people that run the technology. That is a very high percentage and just shows how much these F1 race teams rely on technology to get them into the race, onto the track and with some luck and skill, onto the winner's podium.

The paddock club is also an amazing experience. You get so close to the cars and the drivers it is incredible. I said hello to rising superstar (and eventual race winner) Lewis Hamilton, while getting good looks at American Scott Speed, AT&T Williams's driver Alexander Wurz and Nico Rossberg.

Finally, the tech sector was well represented at the race with Lenovo of course, but also Intel, AMD, Dell, CA, Sun Microsystems, and another firm I had never heard of called Exact Software.

I want to thank the nice people at AT&T Williams, Lenovo, the CGP and Ketchum.

A couple of quick hits before I go. Former Channel Elite Award winner Joe Ussia has left OAM Group to become the director of sales for Digica, an HP gold partner in Toronto. Best of luck to you Joe.

Also Celenia Software has a new CEO. It is Rex Clausager, who takes over for Henrik Kristiansen.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/11/07, 3:06 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Technology at the F1 speed

You would think the Williams Formula 1 racing team is in the business of sport. But, according to Scott Garrett, the team's director of marketing, AT&T Williams is a technology company. Well about 80 per cent of it is.

It is technology that gives Williams a competitive edge in the ultra fast world of Formula 1 racing.

Through technology partners such as Lenovo and AT&T, Williams has increased the speed at which it gathers and processes data fourfold. This has enabled the team to come to market much quicker in a business built on speed.

The average time to market for AT&T Williams is between two days and two weeks to develop and build parts for super fast open-wheel racing.

If you consider the fact that team owner Frank Williams has never used a computer in his lifetime, according to Garrett, I find the Williams technology story absolutely fascinating.

One of the reasons why Frank Williams has never touched a computer is because he is a paraplegic from a car accident in 1986. Even so, he is a visionary who has two wind tunnels at his Oxfordshire, England campus just to test aerodynamics.

Lenovo is currently putting the finishing touches on a high performance computing system at that campus that will be state of the art, Garrett said. He could not divulge the specs right now because it still isn't finished. But he said that every sponsorship dollar to operate two cars in the Formula 1 racing year is spent, and most of that budget is spent on IT.

I asked Garrett if the ultimate challenge for him was to maintain driver safety, while reaching optimum speed. His answer was revealing. He said that it is reversed. The challenge is to go as fast as you can given the Formula 1 Association's safety mandates.

Garrett added that the FIA has three main goals. No. 1 is driver and race safety. No. 2 is to deliver a racing spectacle, which is basically the entertainment factor. No. 3 is to do all of the above in an environmentally friendly way. He said the environmental part, which he believes is truly honourable, is the hardest thing to achieve for him and his team because the sport produces incredible amounts of carbon emissions.

However, I found it very interesting that the FIA is going green along with several of the high profile IT vendors in the industry.

Today, I am at the Montreal Grand Prix qualifying day one where I will get an opportunity to see first hand how technology is helping the Williams team and its drivers Nico Rossberg and Alexander Wurz be competitive. I will give a full recap of what goes on in the garages and paddock areas during a race in my next blog.

A couple of quick hits before I go. Stephen DeLeon and Sheldon Pollack of ONX have put the finishing touches on its Momentum deal. Momentum Advanced Solutions Inc. has received the final $2.3 million from the VAR asset sale, something the two executives put in motion in December of last year.

Also Info Technology Supply Ltd., a U.K.-based IT solutions provider, is opening an office in Canada. Canada will be the company's 24th international location.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/6/07, 10:06 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

More on IT hiring

Two innovative ways solution providers can solve IT staffing shortages

Yesterday we were inundated with e-mail letters from readers who did not take kindly to CGI CEO Michael Roach's assertions on the IT labour shortage.

Here are a couple of items solution providers should look at to solve their staffing needs.

If you have an ERP or CRM practice, try looking at junior accountants. Many of them are stuck at accounting firms with little hope of advancement for many years.

A lot of them have left school fully versed on ERP and CRM.

Chartered accountants can fill this ERP and CRM shortage gap, especially since IDC predicted a growth rate of 5.5 per cent or more in this market segment for Canada.

Another avenue to explore is partnering with a provider of on-demand talent management solutions. A company such as Taleo Corp. of Toronto, can help solution providers meet the future of recruiting with unique sourcing technology and online hiring through a hosted environment.

Taleo helps organizations set up career Web sites in many different languages, define talent needs, track and screen applicants and tap into global worker pools by leveraging social networking technology.

A lot of quick hits before I go: AMD's channel chief Gary Bixler will be in charge of marketing for the Canadian operation.

Farzad Nazem, Yahoo's longtime chief technical officer has resigned.

One of the more high profile executives at Cisco Systems, Mike Volpi, is the new CEO of Joost, an Internet TV service. Joost was created by the founders of Skype and Kazaa.

McAfee announced the appointment of Joe Sexton to senior vice- president of North American sales.

And Bill Gates will give the Harvard commencement address. As most of you know, Gates is probably Harvard's most famous drop-out.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/6/07, 10:06 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

My work week

Hiking tuition, boy did we strike a nerve

Writing news articles for many years and covering the IT industry in Canada and around the world I have never quite understood what triggers readers to call in or write in with their comments.

I remember about ten years back a front page feature article about the lack of women in IT creating a shortfall. The story was written by a female staff reporter based on interviews from five women in the IT field. These women had really nasty things to say about other women who would rather work at low paying jobs instead of getting a high paying career in IT.

Now I thought we would be inundated with letters and phone calls. But, the story did not get a thing.

A year later I wrote a column about a Women's Television Network program profiling great women in history. The program featured celebrities such as runway model Cindy Crawford and sitcom actress Judith Light, while ignoring accomplished women such as Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias, Grace Hopper, Madame Marie Curie, Florence Nigtengale and others.

This column, which was not meant to stir the pot, did exactly that. I got calls and letters from women in IT that supported my view and were angry at the Women's Television Network. Even the head of programming at the station gave me a call basically admitted the network dropped the ball.

I once got called on the carpet for writing a story about aluminum cases for PCs. My editor thought it was an insignificant story. He changed his mind after getting so many letters about the story.

Yesterday we had a similar situation with a story about the IT labour shortage.

Here are a few responses from readers.

Nick Evans emailed this response.

"Canada needs to create superior higher education institutions like Harvard, and parents should be willing to pay higher tuition for their children, to help address an emergency in IT labour shortage, says the head of the CGI Group."

It's privileged assholes like this who will never understand why this country continues to fall behind on the technology front. (About) 85 per cent to 90 per cent of parents don't have the money: how the hell do they pay for that (four years @ $25,000/year = $100,000 / child ~ and that's NOT at Harvard! Tuition alone there is $40,000/year), a bloody mortgage on the (average cost $300,000) house and save for retirement (estimated requirement $500,000 / person)? The average wage in this country for lone parent families is $38,000 before taxes, for two parent families is $73,000 - i.e. the same per earner. Do the math: tax rate at that level is 21 per cent so the take-home is $30,000 per earner or $57,700 per couple ~ $2,400/month per earner or $4,800/couple. A 25 year mortgage on $300,000 @ 6 per cent: $1,932 saves money/month to get $500,000 for two persons @ 8 per cent after 25 years: $1,050 pay off Education expense ($200,000) for two children @ 6 per cent over 25 years: $1,228/month.

Total: $4,210. So what's left for medical, dental, property/car insurance, food & clothing etc. for four, and car/transportation for two? $4,800-$4,210 = $590.

Get the picture?

Of course there are exceptions to this, but you can't staff an industry with exceptions. If his industry wants resources it should be prepared to pay for them instead of asking for handouts. Why doesn't he and his fellow trough -wallowing CEO's get it and establish proper apprenticeship programs? No, they just want stuff to be given to them; talk about corporate welfare bums.

(I paid for my own education - such as it is).

Jozef Robak wrote this about the story.

Referring to an article by Howard Solomon of June 1, "Hike tuition fees to help pay for superior Canadian higher Ed, says CGI head". The argument put forth by CGI in that article amounts to the notion that it is parents' responsibility to train IT workers (employees). That slight of hand argument has several irksome facets. In response, I'd like to say "Hike corporate responsibility to employees (for training among other things) and IT enrollment will take care of itself.

Higher education has always meant graduates with superior reasoning skills, with scientific and critical thinking skills and with advanced grounding in any number of academic disciplines. Schools are still producing these individuals - what's in question is the next step. In the case of trades, apprentice programs are still the norm. In the case of "white collar" work, such as IT, the next step has become uncertain. Training is the equivalent of apprenticing, and is supposed to be done by the recipient of the benefits of those skills, the hiring firm. Additionally, in exchange for loyal employment, the firm also had an opportunity to mold the employee to fit the company's unique culture. This deep commitment and all of its implications to training/education, has disappeared or is rapidly vapourizing from corporate responsibility.

As firms reduce per capita training, they reduce the time in training and depth of training, then complain that the deep skills they need aren't there. I suggest that the responsibility to train individuals to this depth is the company's responsibility not that of parents through their education dollars to the country's academies. When, what's missing is a sound and effective commitment to hire, to train, and to keep their IT employees, the result is a broken employee-employer relationship and out of step skills supply-demand relationship.

So, hike responsibility of corporations seeking to hire IT workers to include paying for in-depth employee training and improved employment security, and enrollment will take care of itself. Graduates are "pouring" out of China and India because the prospect of future IT employment is bright in those countries. Despite what CGI head Michael Roach is preaching, students are quick to note the treatment Canadian IT workers are receiving, and they must not like what they see. What they see are companies that appear to be reneging on their commitment to their employees while demanding more from them. Outsourcing trends have meant companies are retaining fewer high paying technical skill roles, instead favouring outsourcing of the very jobs they say they can't fill, or talking about the value of education while stunting their own technical education programs and continually trying to externalize IT education costs. Couple this with a work-week that's growing and seems to have no ceiling to the number of hours an employee is expected to work, and there's no wonder the shine has come off Canada's IT employment apple.

It would not surprise me to find comments such as those from CGI, drawing ire and further separating students from IT work. Get your act together corporate IT Canada. Apparently students are not persuaded by mere rhetoric.

Finally, I'm in agreement with the closing comment that “education is something that needs to be heavily invested in”. To that end my suggestion is: large companies, who get the benefit of IT skills, should be required to reimburse parents an amount equivalent to tuition, for every skilled employee they retain, and not ask governments or parents to foot their bill. A company would think twice before treating lightly any employee, in which they had so invested, resulting in a strengthened employee-employer commitment and of course more funding for schools. Walk the talk corporate IT Canada.

W. Hugh Chatfield, the president of CyberSpace Industries 2000 Inc. asks shortage, maybe not.

I, like tens of thousands of other techies, found themselves out on the street, when managers found they could make more money firing people (oops, sorry...downsizing/rightsizing the company, outsourcing the resources) than by being innovative. Bottom line is all that counts, right? - Where is my bonus?

If there was a demand for technical people, you would think that these myriads of people would quickly find themselves permanently employed again... but this seems not to be so. Advertise a job and the lineup stretches to the horizon.

Ah, but the Prime Minister assures me we have the lowest unemployment rate in quite some while. Horse apples... at no time, when I was "downsized" did I ever appear in the count of the unemployed.... even though I was.... for over a year. I finally gave up - formed my own company, and now I am permanently employed, no matter whether I get enough contracts or not. The measurement of unemployed can be jockeyed to manufacture any number you like. I don't count PhD's driving taxis, or a solid state physicist flipping hamburgers, or even myself as president of my own company, as employed, unless we are fully utilized in the fields we were trained for.

Certainly build centres of expertise, and somewhere in that process teach the managers how to recognize and utilize the talents and experience of the people they currently have. Teach that knowing how to use a particular programming software package is important, but having someone who knows about programming in general is far more important - a good software package can be learned in no time. Teach them that an advanced degree is important - but maybe not as important as a quarter century of hard experience in the field. And, for heavens sake stop turning out only narrow domain specialists and cultivate the generalist who can adjust to changing technologies, and new tasks as they come ( as they do ever couple of years now).

Look at me for example... honours degree in Physics, quarter century of IT experience, certified Information Systems Professional (ISP), eight years of general markup experience, and now I am making movies, teaching XML, and getting papers on AI accepted at international conferences, and still seriously under utilized. At least being self employed is far more fun.... and oh yes, and I will never be counted on the list of unemployed.

And, Mark Schmit, marketing manager for SMI Industrial Electronics of Langley, B.C. had this to say.

I have really grown tired of Canadian companies grousing and griping about a lack of quality graduates. Perhaps some of these companies should look inwards and ask the question of whether they could do more by investing in education and providing positive prospects for current and future employees. I have worked in the IT industry for quite a few years and I grew tired of companies that expected an employee to be in a continual state of learning, but require the employees to invest their own time and money to do it.

There was rarely time during the work day to invest in training due to the heavy workloads that people were expected to perform under. And, the fast pace of change in the IT industry has meant that while workers are expected to learn all the latest software and hardware, support requirements for older systems do not disappear overnight and that further complicated the knowledge requirements for IT staff.

The education system and government certainly hold a share of the blame as well. Through career retraining programs and tech schools that churned out mountains of grads that forced the wage structure for all workers to be suppressed, even though many of these “grads” had only been taught to answer the questions in order to be able to achieve a coveted four letter designation after their names. One such graduate I interviewed for a position was awe struck when I showed him a server rack, and I knew that the interview was over when his first response was, “wow, is this where you change all the passwords”. I wish that was not a true story but sadly it is.

Any of the young people I have had the opportunity to work with, express interest in a meaningful and interesting career. Many are also searching for some stability in that career and the IT industry does not portray an image of stability. Be it the dot.com bust, outsourcing of quality jobs or the programs of phasing out older workers, as undertaken by more than one Canadian company, young people have good reason to be suspicious and wary when entering this career field.

Unlike the 70's and early 80's when the field was relatively young and exciting and growing almost constantly and promised great challenging careers, the IT field has matured and is less mysterious. This also means that people are more aware of the long hours and massive amount of on going training that is required.

As with anything familiar, perhaps a little of the gloss and glory of working in the IT field has faded.

I want to personally thank everyone who writes in. You have now idea how much we, as journalists, appreciate it.

One quick hit before I go. Dr. Abraham Lempel, the creator of data compression technology, will receive the 2007 IEEE Richard W. Hamming medal for his pioneering work.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/4/07, 11:06 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

My work week

Last week I have to say was one of those up and down weeks people get.

It started by really not starting on Monday. The airbags in my SUV were stolen by professional thieves, according to the police officer investigating the break in.

Nothing else was stolen. My Toronto FC soccer tickets were left, the stereo system was not taken, the spare change was left, and not even my daughter's toy laptop was ripped off.

There is a big after market need for airbags. My airbags are worth $4,000.

I cannot tell you how violated I felt. The whole day was spent dealing with my car being broken into.

The next day was a lot better. I got a rare chance to meet Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California who was in Toronto on a trade mission. That was a highlight for sure.

On Wednesday was my highly anticipated Michael Dell meeting. I am going to rate that one a mixed day because the channel still harbours ill feelings towards his company and I do not think we, in the media, got all of our questions answered.

Thursday was the most uneventful day I had. I had one interview with an Adobe executive through something called Connect, where I actually got to see a live view of my interview subject Stephane LeSieur on my PC. The day ended with my Accordant CEO interview being postponed.

Friday came and all I was looking forward to was the weekend. I had one major interview to do with fellow named Alex Burns, who I was told was the CIO of Formula 1 racing team Williams. My first question to him was how long have you been a CIO of F1 team? Burns' answer was I am not a CIO. He is a COO. Well that is much better. I would rather talk to business person than a techie.

One quick hit before I go. We have a new member of the CDN team. Maxine Cheung is our new staff writer. I am really pumped to have her on board and I am sure the channel will as well.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/4/07, 12:06 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

The spam kings

I found yesterday's international news item that Robert Alan Soloway, a.k.a. the spam king, was arrested really funny. It was funny because the same federal authorities that arrested Soloway said that his incarceration would see a dramatic decline in the amount of junk e-mail worldwide.

While Soloway is one of the top spammers in history he will be but a footnote over time because you see spam is not going away and will not be in decline not dramatically nor even slightly. Spam will not be stopped and the reason is that spam is uncontrollable and cheap to operate. With a little training and know-how anyone can do it, anywhere. Let me share with you some insight on so called Spam Kings such as Soloway.

Two years ago the FBI raided one of the largest spam operations in Michigan. The FBI seized computers and records from the 8,000-square-foot home of Alan Ralsky. He too was called the Spam King because he became rich from sending more than 100 million e-mails a day.

In 2005, Vardan Kushnir, the king of spam because he chiseled his workers out of profits, had many buxom, blonde sexual partners, thumbed his nose at government prosecutors and oh, on his spare time, flooded the world with 25 million e-mails a day. Well Kushnir was found dead one day because he had his head busted open.

In 2004, Scott Richter, called the Spam King by Spamhaus, a registry of known spam operators, was sued Microsoft and the New York State Attorney General. He supposedly sent out 100 million e-mails a day.

After Richter paid Microsoft US$7 million to settle an anti-spam lawsuit he became known as the former Spam King.

There is even a Cajan Spam King. Ronnie Scelson, a Louisiana-based business man went public a few years ago saying what he does is perfectly legal. A published report claimed Scelson had a gun near his PC.

And, back in 1998, Sanford Wallace was charged $2 million to settle a lawsuit against his company that produced millions of junk email. He too was called the Spam King.

Do you see where I am going with this? No matter how successful the law is in punishing spammers or closing them done. And, in one case a spammer got killed. All this did not stop spam.

So I say to all federal agents who do diligent work putting spammers away please gives us all a collective break with Spam Kings and predictions of ending spam or bulk e-mailing.

Two quick hits before I go. Dave Paolini, PR practitioner for Lenovo Canada has left his post suddenly. He was at Lenovo Canada on a one year contract covering the maternity leave of Sue Taylor. This leaves Lenovo without a president and an internal PR representative in Canada.

Also, Carmi Levy is apparently leaving Info-Tech Research of London. I wish both Paolini and Levy the best in future endeavours. Both are class acts.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 6/1/07, 11:06 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

The Michael Dell briefing

Well it happened. I was in the same room as Michael Dell and the world did not cave in. The sky did not fall and while I am not 100 per cent sure on this I also believe hell did not freeze over.

What it ended up being was an incredible surreal experience for me. He looks the Texan business man; minus the ten gallon hat and cowboy boots.

He responded to every question asked of him. Did he answer every question? I don't think he did, but it is debatable.

I think the most honest answer he gave was the shortest one. I asked him what would be the percentage of indirect version direct business in the next six to 18 months. Dell's answer was: “Don't know.”

I believe him because Dell is entering un-chartered territory with the channel. He may have answered it this way because he has an analyst conference call tomorrow.

Either way, I think it will be an unsettling time for Dell in the next six to 18 months.

This may end up being a good thing for the company.

Cisco Systems went through at least two years of rocky times before it found its channel success. And, look at the company know. It is running on all cylinders.

Harry Zarek, CEO of Compugen at the previous nights' Arnold Schwarzenegger event suggested I ask Dell if he was willing to move major direct accounts to the channel. Zarek believes that if Dell was willing to do that it would prove that the company is not blowing smoke at the channel. I would agree with him.

Dell did not answer that question to my satisfaction, but again maybe he really can't say anything right now.

He was asked by another journalist if Dell had a watershed moment in his mind to go channel. Dell said that he did not. The decision to engage in the channel was more of an evolution. So maybe Dell has thought about moving significant direct accounts to the channel and maybe he hasn't. The plan is being formulated over time instead of showing all of his cards at once.

That is fine for now because I can tell you the channel will not be showing all of its cards to Dell either.

This is what you call the feeling out process.

One quick hit before I go. Frank Clegg, former Microsoft Canada president and current chairman of solution provider Navantis Inc. of Toronto has been appointed to the board of directors of AMD by its CEO Hector Ruiz.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/31/07, 11:06 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

A night with the Governator

Cisco Canada was very gracious in inviting me and IT World Canada colleagues John Pickett and Dan McLean to yesterday's Canada/California trade mission opening reception.

This event, held at the Liberty Grand, was a first-class affair with many dignitaries on hand from the channel and business. Harry Zarek of Compugen, John Breakey of Unis Lumin and John Tenant of the Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. Technology Triangle were there along with Terry Walsh and Ross Pellizzari of Cisco Canada.

So were Larry Tanenbaum of the Toronto Maple Leafs, George Gillette of the Montreal Canadians, Dick Howard of FIFA, Frank McKenna, Canada's former U.S. ambassador and former premier of New Brunswick and U.S. ambassador to Canada David Wilkins.

These people all came to see Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, a state which many American call a nation.

Schwarzenegger is a true salesman. He said last night that when he was 15 years old his teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. This former seven time Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe bodybuilding champion and movie star said he wanted to be a salesman.

“When I was 15 I wanted to be a salesman. I went to a trade school to learn how to be a salesman and little did I know at the time that I would be using these skills today to sell and promote,” Schwarzenegger said. And indeed that is his goal for Canada/California trade mission. The governor's four main targets are the environment, produce, wine and information technology.

Currently, trade between Canada and California is US$36 billion and Schwarzenegger wants to increase that to US$50 billion.

“I am meeting with my Canadian counterparts and there are so many things to offer California and Canada. Both should benefit,” Schwarzenegger said.

Another important area of discussion is stem cell research. The state of California is spending US$3 billion in this area and Schwarzenegger said he was happy with Canada's commitment in this area and wants to work together on it. He added that technology will be the key to moving stem cell research further.

At the event, Cisco Canada, a main sponsor of the evening gala, announced that Rogers Communications is the first Canadian Telepresence customer. Cisco Canada president Terry Walsh showed a short video of Schwarzenegger and Cisco CEO John Chambers using Telepresence to contact Rogers CEO Ted Rogers.

In that video Rogers said that he could see Telepresence being used in people's homes in the next five years.

Walsh said that Telepresence fits within Schwarzenegger's main targets for his trade mission to Canada.

“Telepresence improves productivity through technology innovation, while reducing the carbon foot print in emissions by reducing travel,” Walsh said.

Schwarzenegger ended the evening by saying that this trade mission is not just about selling goods, but sharing ideas and forming partnerships. “I am a salesman and I love to promote. I did it with my bodybuilding career. I promoted my movies and (I sell and promote) today as governor. You have to promote. You may have the best product in the world, but if you don't tell anyone you have nothing,” Schwarzenegger said.

One quick hit before I go. Direct market reseller CDW may be acquired by Madison Dearborn Partners, a private equity company based in Chicago. No terms have been disclosed, but one published report said the deal could be worth US$7.3 billion in cash.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/30/07, 11:06 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Dell should test in Canada

p>Well, tomorrow I am meeting Michael Dell in the flesh. I have to say that I am nervous and I can't figure out why. It is a history thing.

But, that is tomorrow. Tonight it is none other than California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who is in Toronto for a California Style, California Innovation event. It is funny, but Schwarzenegger is a better known individual that Dell, but yet there is no nervousness on my part for the governator.

Meanwhile, one reader has emailed me about Dell's interest in the Canada and he say it is a shame that Dell is testing its channel plan in the U.S. before Canada.

Here is his take on things:

Truth is that I got a little excited when I heard that Dell was entertaining an indirect sales model and disheartened to hear that it is being test marketed in the US. Canada would have made a more sensible test market for Dell where their logistics in our vast country are more compromised. Added to the fact that the Canadian consumer is a more educated creature that typically demands more than the average retailer can provide. Logistics and knowledge have always explained why VAR makes the most sense for Canada. But I suppose that it answers why Dell is restricting its product offerings in Wal-Mart where the more sophisticated consumer is being directed back to more sophisticated Dell expertise at the Borg's toll free number. All that being said, I would love to be part of an initiative to implement a VAR model for Dell in Canada. Keep your friend's close and your enemies closer. The VAR community would embrace a Dell VAR model so long as they could be guaranteed that the direct sales initiative would respect boundaries and not back solicit their business. Both HP and IBM have direct sales models that have enjoyed a coexistence with the VAR Channel for many years. Not perfect but tenable.

One quick hit before I go. Andy Chen joins MiNO Wireless as senior vice president of business development, sales and marketing.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/29/07, 11:08 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Wal-Mart will help Dell only so far

Wal-Mart and Dell should be friends. Both organizations are focused on delivering the lowest price possible.

Forget Dell's XPS 720 H2C gaming PC that costs $6,000. This machine will not be on the retailer's shelves.

This partnership is something the direct vendor must do to boost sales of its PCs. The main message I have been getting from Dell's PR practitioners is that customer are asking the company for more ways to purchase Dell products.

And that is pretty much true. Over the years several channel partners have told me the same thing: Their customers have asked for Dell mainly because it was the cheapest. The channel was for the most part unable to satisfy these customers, so they either offered something else or directed them to Dell's Web site.

Wal-Mart will help Dell sell more PCs and I base this statement on the volume of shoppers going through the turnstiles each at the retailer.

According to a Wal-Mart spokesperson, Canada's population basically shops at the 284 stores across the country on a monthly basis. That is an amazing stat.

The only challenge as I see it is that Wal-Mart does not attract the sophisticated buyer. Retailers such as Best Buy, Future Shop and CompuSmart, which is on the block by the way, do attract these decision makers.

I will give you an example. Recently I sat next to a real estate developer who was watching a movie on an HP Media Centre notebook he purchased at Best Buy. I asked how he liked it. He said he loved it so much that he equipped his company with HP notebooks. They were not all entertainment laptops, but mostly business machines. You see my point.

A couple of quick hits before I go: MediSolution of Montreal, a former CDN Top 100 fastest riser, has unveiled a new brand identity and announced that the MPlex Solutions public and service sector division will be renamed Virtuo Solutions effective immediately.

U.S. Display Consortium appointed Mark Hartney as its chief technical officer.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/25/07, 12:08 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Hackers have won

Mike Haro, a senior executive at security vendor Trend Micro Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., told me an amazing bit of news yesterday.

He said that according to the FBI that malware is an US$8 billion industry in America. The FBI also estimated that American businesses have lost US$67.2 billion because of computer-related crimes.

That ladies and gentlemen makes the hacking society bigger than drug lords, bigger than the security industry.

The amount of money being funneled through hackers and virus writers means that as it stands now it is more lucrative to be a bad guy than a good guy. The repercussions of these stats is that some young bright minds may choose a life of crime because it pays better and the legal ramifications are a slap on the wrist.

CDN recently reported that criminal hackers have not only gotten smarter, but have built an industrial infrastructure that rivals corporate America, with its own mergers and acquisitions and subterranean trading market. Viruses, bots and command and control centres are traded each day like commodities and stocks and bonds.

How did it get this way? Back in the nineties a lot of users felt the marijuana virus was at best whimsical and at worst annoying. It was hardly dangerous and the people that developed this virus want just some notoriety to their cause, which was legalizing marijuana.

Today, it is not about getting noticed. In fact, those that get noticed usually are forced out of business by the hackers themselves. Getting noticed means losing money. This hacking industry is all about making money. They have built, virtually unknown to anyone, an $8 billion industry just in the U.S. They do not pay taxes on this money by the way, which is why the FBI has suddenly become really interested in this community. A community may not be the proper term for these cybercrooks, but this is what they have built over the past 20 years.

FBI director Robert Mueller in a speech said crime has a new frontier.

Mueller and FBI Cyber-executive Steve Martinez have already met with security vendor leaders in Silicon Valley.

From there the bureau established a Cyber Division and began training cyber squads in the FBI's 56 field offices.

Currently, they have 93 computer crimes task forces.

The investment in investigating cybercrime has already netted some results.

The FBI arrested a 20-year-old hacker named Jeanson James Ancheta, a well-known member of the botmaster underground, who pled guilty to seizing control of hundreds of Internet-connected computers and renting the network to people who mounted attacks on Web sites.

With that comes the realization that cybercrime is a crime. And, just like crime you can never get rid of it. So in a sense, the hackers have won.

One quick hit before I go: James Suttie, the CEO of Infowave Software of Vancouver is stepping down from his post for health reasons. The board of directors has started a search to replace him.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/23/07, 12:08 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Controlling the world's information

In his keynote at EMC World in Orlando, CEO Joe Tucci said that by 2010, nearly three quarters of the world's digital information will be created by individuals, not corporations.

If you look at sites such as Wikipedia.org, it looks as if Tucci is saying something safe.

However, given the recent trend of vendors either supporting or building social networking sites for such users, I am willing to bet there is an issue of control that is being raised in boardrooms across the world.

This blog is supposedly well read, from what they tell me, and I am an individual. I am also an employee of ITWorldCanada, which is partly owned by the IDG, a billion dollar organization.

Do you see where I am getting at here? Corporations such as EMC, IBM, Microsoft, Cisco and a host of others have taken notice of social networking sites such as Myspace.com and others and I think are scared of them. These online areas are really the wild west.

These corporations need to understand them first. They already understand how user groups work and the media. While they cannot totally control the message there, they certain have their foot in the door.

The vendors may not be writing the message. They are certainly not delivering their message. But, in certain ways they do know how to present a message to user groups and the media.

Social networking sites have rogue posters who, if interesting and clever, can build up an audience. Corporations would be afraid of these types of people. That is why they have spend huge amounts of money on viral marketing.

Control is the issue here.

One quick hit before I go: Long time friend of CDN,

Anthony Sukdeo of Technocorp, is selling off some of his assets, namely 2000000 Ontario Inc., which owns Extendant technology and its trademark. Sukdeo is also selling Technocorp. I hope all goes well for him and I wish Sukdeo all the best.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/23/07, 12:08 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Ipods not so good with pacemakers

Celtic Tiger North

The Republic of Ireland is one of the booming economies of the world right now. It is being called the Celtic Tiger. Things are also happening in a positive sense in Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. There is shared rule between two jurisdictions, and violence has basically stopped for nearly 10 years.

One of the lasting memories I have as a child is a black and while music video from The Police, a superstar rock band of the late seventies. I can't quite remember the title of the song, but the images are of death and destruction from Belfast, Northern Ireland.

At the time, there was a big controversy with a fellow named Bobby Sands, who was a member of the U.K. parliament while on a hunger strike in prison. He died 66 days later.

During the conflict between 1969 to 1993, more than 5,000 people died and more than 40,000 were injured, according to various sources.

As a child looking at these horrible images and terrifying news stories, it cemented in my mind that Northern Ireland is not a safe place to do anything.

So when I get an invitation from the Northern Ireland Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) which wants to showcase the best of the region's digital broadband content, I look at it with amazement.

It was not that long ago that this region looked as if it was only hell bent on destroying itself.

This event from DETI is part of an awareness campaign to promote Northern Ireland as a creative digital hub and highlight the wealth of creative and technical talent there.

Paul Robinson, not the absent- minded England goalkeeper, but the project manager at DETI, said the awareness campaign will show a global audience that Northern Ireland can produce world-class broadband products.

This may be true Mr. Robinson, but what it also shows is that a miracle has taken place.

One quick hit before I go. Well you knew this was going to happen sooner rather than later, but Siemens has a new CEO and it is Peter Loescher, the former head of the Merck. He replaces Klaus Kleinfeld, who stepped down as CEO.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/22/07, 12:08 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Ipods not so good with pacemakers

Dell will stay direct in Canada

Well Michael Dell threw me a curve ball yesterday morning. It was my final production deadline day for CDN. We really do not do any writing or reporting on this day except if it is really big news. And, Dell embracing the channel is really big news. So I decided to put the front page on hold for this story.

Greg Davis's business card just happened to be right next to my phone if you can believe that. If you do not know who he is Mr. Davis runs Dell Canada. I placed a call to him fully expecting someone on the other end of the line to politely tell me to take a hike.

Instead his assistant said she understood the importance of the breaking news and would get Davis to speak to me between 12 and 1 o'clock.

Suddenly, I thought to myself: Wow, they are really going to abandon the direct model.

I could not believe it was happening. I thought for a moment that I would have to retire from CDN. What else could I accomplish? I have been fighting the good fight against the direct model for 11 years.

Was it time to declare victory for the channel and move on? I have to tell you I really thought so. Other reporters in the office could not believe it either. Dell has been bashing the channel for 23 years and now, all of a sudden, the channel is its champion?

Around 12:30 Janet Fabri, internal PR practitioner at Dell Canada called me to ask if 3:45 PM would be a good time to interview Davis. She added that Davis was really looking forward to talking to me and that they welcomed the opportunity with CDN.

This conversation further cemented my thoughts that Dell Canada would stop selling direct or introduce some kind of hybrid channel strategy. I am used to getting platitudes from PR practitioners, but I thought Fabri's words were more strategic in nature.

I also thought the time change was necessary on their part to better prep Davis for the interview, which by the way is fine from my end. A better prepared executive makes for at least a more informative story.

Davis would be the first Dell Canada president I would interview since Bruce Sinclair and Marc Coleman and I was feeling a little nervous to tell you the truth. I shook that off right away I still have to finish the publication on time.

So I start to write my headline and my lead. I line up executives from channel partners and a distributor for secondary comment on the story.

It is 3:45 PM and it is time for the call. Davis would be calling me. The phone rings and Fabri and Davis are on the other end. We both exchange pleasantries and then I start with my first question: IS DELL CANADA GOING TO ABANDON DIRECT SALES AND ENTER THE CHANNEL?.

I then get my second surprise of the day. Davis basically said no.

I must have asked the same question six or seven times during the interview. Each time rephrased of course, but Davis who probably ran out of new ways to say the same thing after question No. 3 was steadfast in his denial.

So after panicking the entire editorial, art and production staffs I said we are leaving the front page alone.

After we made deadline, I received another call from Fabri asking me if I understood that Dell Canada was staying direct. I said to her that was really the only thing I got from the interview.

I have to commend Davis and Fabri for being, cordial, professional and talking to me. It was the right thing to do and something previous regimes at Dell Canada have failed to do.

One quick hit before I go. Gerri Martin-Flickinger has been named CIO of Adobe Systems. He was previously with VeriSign. He will report to Mark Garrett the CFO. No blog tomorrow as I will be taking the day off. Happy Victoria Day!

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/15/07, 3:08 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Ipods not so good with pacemakers

Ipods are great. They really put MP3s on the map with consumers. I have personally purchased four Ipods. None for me mind you. One was for my better half and the other three were for my lovely, but absent-minded niece.

But yesterday over the wire I read a story I simply could not believe. In the news story, a 17-year old boy genius conducted a study that found IPods can cause cardiac implantable pacemakers to malfunction by interfering with the electromagnetic equipment monitoring the heart. The high schooler from Okemos High School, somewhere in Michigan presented his findings to a meeting of heart specialists.

I better make sure my niece doesn't get any where near my father in law. This kid tested Ipods on 100 patients around the age of 77 who had pacemakers. He only tested Ipods. I will bet that Sandisk and Creative Labs are relieved.

According to the story, the Ipods caused interference when held 18 inches from the chest in some cases.

The kids name is Jay Thaker and he concluded that Ipod interference can lead physicians to misdiagnose actual heart function. Let me tell you something the world will be this kid's oyster someday. I can only imagine all of his scholarship offers. I wonder what Apple thinks of all of this. They will probably either say nothing or won't know anything about it.

This also leads me to believe that there is just too much research in this world. The chances of a 77-year-old using an Ipod are remote.

One quick hit before I go. It is official Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy has been sworn in as France's new President taking over from Jacques Chirac. Sarkozy defeated Socialist Segolene Royal in a run-off ballot. You will remember that Royal supported a sovereign Quebec upsetting Prime Minister Stephen Harper and many other Canadians including me. Let this be a lesson for Royal to mind her own business. The people of France do not care about the people of Quebec or anybody else for that matter. Maybe next time if she concentrates on France instead of Quebec Royal may get some more votes.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/15/07, 3:08 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Choosing clothes over computers

As the Internet grows up, computers have moved over to make room for clothing at the top of sales lists. According to the first part of The State of Retailing Online 2007, the 10th annual Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research, Inc. of 170 retailers, Americans last year spent more online on clothing than they did on computers for the first time in history. Now there were no specific Canadian figures, but I would bet it is close.

The report found the apparel, accessories and footwear category reached $18.3 billion (all figures in U.S. dollars) in 2006 and is expected to hit $22.1 billion in 2007. This year, 10 per cent of all clothing sales are expected to occur online.

If you look at a site called Zappos.com, which sells shoes you can easily see why clothing and accessories are out pacing PCs.

Except for women, who really enjoy shoe shopping, who wants to spend time walking in malls or driving around town to find a store and then select something you may like? My wife buys it all for me so I am lucky, but what if you don't.

Zappos has free overnight shipping and a wide selection. All you really need to know is your shoe size. They have a 365-day return policy. Can you imagine? Wearing the shoes for 360 days and then returning them. I would advise against it.

The main things with Zappos, or any of the other apparel retailers, is the saving of time. As you get older time becomes increasingly important. You need shoes and you need clothes, but you do not have to waste an entire afternoon looking for them.

Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, said apparel retailers have overcome a number of hurdles to encourage shoppers to buy clothing and accessories online. Retailers are doing such a great job online that in some cases it's easier to find and buy clothing on the Web than it is in a store.

The report suggests that the apparel and accessories category has experienced strong sales because of an influx of new companies and liberal shipping policies such as free shipping on returns and exchanges. Additionally, apparel and accessories retailers are integrating new technologies onto their sites including rich imaging, where customers can zoom and rotate merchandise or see the item in different colors before buying, all of which eases the mind of a customer hesitant to purchase apparel online.

Computer hardware and software, long the frontrunner for non-travel online sales, moved into second place in 2006 at $17.2 billion, followed by sales of autos and auto parts ($16.7 billion) and home furnishings ($10 billion).

According to the report, 2007 online sales (including travel) are expected to rise 18 per cent to $259.1 billion. Sales excluding travel will reach $174.5 billion. This strong growth will come off of an impressive performance in 2006. Online sales last year rose 25 percent to $219.9 billion. Excluding travel, online retail sales rose 29 per cent to $146.5 billion, representing six percent of total retail sales in 2006.

I agree with that report that e-commerce has come of age. It is only natural that PCs would be the top online item when the Web started to roll. Those users understood the Internet. Today, literally everyone understands the Internet. A lot of people have tried it. People use sites such as Amazon and Ebay. They know it works so why not buy personal items such as clothes and shoes?

One quick hit before I go. PCWorld editor-in-chief Harry McCracken is back at work after he chose to leave the magazine over a conflict.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/15/07, 11:08 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Mother's Day mayhem

Yesterday was Mother's Day. I know that was not a news flash.

Usually it's a banner day for the greeting card and floral industries.

It is also another day for the unsavory of computing to target those unsuspecting, good hearted men and women who just want to reach out and touch someone.

E-cards have risen in popularity and kids are really into it. According to McAfee, they will send millions of e-cards to their mommies' inboxes across North America. Most of these e-cards are free online, which also means they are susceptible to choosing the wrong Web site. So along with the best wishes your mom will get spam, spyware and adware.

For these and other special occaisions I suggest you use tools such as Symantec's Threat Explorer or McAfee's SiteAdvisor, which point out risky sites.

One quick hit before I go. I am sad to report that Kelly Bizeau is stepping down as membership committee chair for the Canadian Information Technology Providers Association (CITPA). Bizeau, who is the president of MarketWorks, will continue to contribute to the association as an Associate member and will remain on the Standing Offer committee. We wish Bizeau all the best.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/14/07, 12:08 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Printer company goes E

PR practitioner Estelle Lacroix e-mailed me the other day about the company's latest P-Touch label printers. The P-Touch line has been incredibly successful for the company the past 15 years.

What amazed me about the e-mail was not the product information, but for the first time Brother Canada is issuing an entirely digital press kit. The company is calling this digital kit virtual paper. And it does look like it. It is interactive and easy to read. It looks like a magazine and by clicking on the edges of the online book it turns the pages for you. All very cool, but why would a printer company want to do something like this?

It is encouraging, but it does not make sense. Shouldn't they want people to print more pages? Isn't the goal of printer vendor to have more people printing more documents? If this happens Brother will sell more printers and meet or exceed its bottom line.

I am not slamming Brother for doing this. All I am saying is that I do not understand it. The only thing that I found challenging was copy and pasting some of the press release copy from the e-press release into another word document. If finally did it, but it wasn't easy.

Three quick hits before I go. DecisionOne has appointed Mike Greenough as the new chairman of the technology support services company.

McAfee Inc. has appointed Joseph Gabbert as executive VP of HR.

And, Nortel has moved Alvio Barrios to the role of president of the Caribbean and Latin America region.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/11/07, 2:08 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

A New York state of mind

Well I was in New York yesterday to cover the launch of Intel's Santa Rosa chipsets.

They will be called from now on Centrino Core 2 Duo and Pro. Now that is enough about Intel.

What I want to tell you was that I had one of those New York days. You know the kind that can only happen in New York.

It was one of those great sunny days in the City and I was hoping to get some time to actually enjoy it. I was just there for the day and leaving at 6:30 PM.

The day started with the cabbie almost crashing the car. I did not see what happened because I was staring out my window at the vast amounts of garbage on Lexington, Ave., when the force of the sudden stop propelled me to the back of the cab's hard plastic barrier. That was a jolt I did not need so early in the morning.

The cabbie tried to explain the situation, but I could not understand his thick accent.

I get to the event site unharmed. The launch was taking place at the Milk Studios in the Chelsea district of New York.

But, before I enter the building someone gets hit by a car. He is still alive, but the car ran away.

Now this Milk place is quite the “in” place to be for New York standards. It recently hosted the MTV after party. It is a photography studio with lounge and apartment loft. The owner used to live in the loft and his shower is bigger than my whole bathroom.

I was two hours early for the event so I decided to hang out at the lounge area. Some girl behind the bar generously offers to make me a cappuccino.

My cell phone was just humming with calls. So I decided to look for a secluded place inside the Milk Studios to return some calls.

I go inside one of these studios and they are having a photo shoot of some kind. The studio has a huge white backdrop with a ramp and runway. There are all types of people there such as models, photographers, people setting up lights and other hangers on. I walk in and they all stop what they are doing and turn their heads to look at me. Some even start to whisper. I find a nice corner with a great view of the Statue of Liberty. I make my calls. Then I leave to the same sort of reception of looks and whispers. I can't help but wonder what they were thinking. No one said a word to me.

Back at the lounge there is another cappuccino waiting for me.

The press conference is late in starting and the Intel PR team takes turns apologizing to me.

I finally get in and there are a few people I know such as Heather Clancy of CRN, John Martinez of RAM, and Roger Kay, a former IDC analyst.

The press conference is over and I have about an hour to write and send the story back to the Toronto office. Even though the Milk Studios are equipped with wireless access none of it was working. Ashley and Mary from Intel PR help me get the story emailed. So a big thank you to both of you.

It is 3:15 PM and if I want to catch an earlier flight I have to leave for the airport immediately. I hail a cab and get to the airport by 4 PM without incident.

As I walk to the gate I bump into none other than ex Prime Minister Paul Martin. He is traveling alone with no security. We have a little chat and then I get on the plane wait an hour on the tarmac and then fly home.

The only thing that would have made my stay even more of a New York kind of day was if I got mugged, but all in all it was great to visit the city that doesn't sleep.

One quick hit before I go. Hewlett-Packard has hired Gary Koopman as its director of volume distribution channels for the Solution Partners Organization in the Americas. Koopman comes from Pillar Data Systems.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/10/07, 3:08 PM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

More on fuel cells

I like getting interesting feedback to the news we provide for you. This next post falls into that category. It is from Gregory Dolan, the vice-president of Methanol Institute in Arlington, Va.

This is what Dolan had to say: Let me offer a more optimistic view of the future for micro fuel cells in laptops than that offered by Acer Inc.'s Jim Wong ("Fuel Cells for Laptops are Years Away, Says Acer, " below). I would agree that the commercial application of fuel cells for consumer electronics is years away, one or two years at best. This is not a far off dream, but a rapidly approaching reality. Methanol is far-and-away the leading hydrogen carrier fuel for micro fuel cells. We are not talking about "fuel packets or refueling stations," rather the small quantities of methanol needed - less then 100 millilitres - will be stored in cartridges that can be easily inserted into the fuel cell device. Simply pop in a fuel cartridge, and your laptop is good to go for another eight to twelve hours. Companies like BIC and Duracell will see that you can buy a couple of cartridges at any local convenience store on the planet, just like you buy AA batteries today. As an alternative business model, you might get fresh methanol cartridges in the mail, right next to your Netflix envelop of the latest DVD movie releases. As you correctly point out, there is much progress on getting regulatory approval for carrying your fuel cell-powered laptop on an airplane. In fact, the international rules are already in place as of January 1, 2007. The U.S. Department of Transportation is planning its own rule-making to catch up with the global standard any day now. You also correctly highlight the safety concerns with overheating batteries. Micro fuel cells help here too. It is likely that your laptop will still have a battery, with the fuel cell acting as an internal recharger and taking most of the load. This means that you can use a smaller and safer battery. It's just about time to rub your eyes and wake up, as the dream of micro fuel cells is very close. Of course, you may have to travel to Tokyo to buy the first units.

Thanks for your feedback Gregory. It is much appreciated.

One quick hit before I go. EMIS Canada, a technology supplier of electronic medical records has hired Eric Gombrich as its new COO.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 5/9/07, 10:08 AM, paolo@itworldcanada.com

Robert X. Cringely, the former ShadowRAM columnist for InfoWorld magazine has reported on PBS's Web site that IBM is planning to lay off 150,000 U.S. workers by the end of this calendar year.

If he is correct, this act will be the biggest slashing of jobs in the IT industry that I have ever seen.

Already analysts have dismissed it and IBM PR practitioners will not comment on it. According to Cringely, the layoffs are part of a plan called LEAN that will see Big Blue be more reliant on offshoring Cringely, by the way, has this information from unnamed sources.

Here is my take on it. Let's just say for argument's sake that Cringely's sources are correct. That is still a lot of people to whack. If IBM was planning on doing this by the end of the year that gives them roughly eight months to do it. I am not in HR manager so I call one to see if this is possible.

And, according to this HR manager, it is very doable in the eight month timeframe. What this HR manager told me was IBM would segment the layoffs on either a state to state basis or regional office basis. This way the local HR manager can handle a smaller number at time. Also the layoffs would be spread out every month. There would still be a huge financial burden to IBM, but it could be done, said this HR manager hypothetically of course.

Cringely even said that the 1,300 layoff that happened last week at IBM Global Services was just the start of things.

Mike Quinn, the head of communications at IBM Canada until his retirement last month, would tell me not to make anything of his retirement, but here I go anyway. So far, nothing has been whispered or rumoured about the many employees here in Canada.

However, I can't help but think Quinn would rather retire than explain this to the media.

One quick hit before I go. Novell has hired Jim Ebzery as senior VP, Identity and Security Management. Ebzery was the former president of Viisage Division of L-1 Identity Solutions and a long time IBM executive.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 1:00 PM, 5/8/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

North America's city of the future

Canada's Technology Triangle has garnered a top five ranking among Small Cities of the Future in North America. It's the second consecutive year that Waterloo Region has fared well in fDi's Cities of the Future rankings.

Recognized in the Top 10 Small Cities of the Future category, Waterloo Region ranked 5th overall. The “Small Cities” category covers communities of 100,000 to 500,000 people. The area also achieved: 2nd for best human resources, 2nd for quality of life, 4th for best infrastructure, and 5th for best development and investment promotion. According to the magazine's editor, Courtney Fingar, Waterloo impressed fDi's judges in several areas, particularly for the region's infrastructure, development and investment promotion, human resources and quality of life.

fDi is a publication for the business of globalization and is produced by Financial Times group of London, U.K. The judging panel represented public and private leaders from New York, Washington and Chicago, and included Steve Demmings, president, Site Selection Canada.

The competition had entries from 108 cities across North America.

I have to say that this does not surprise me. And, it should not surprise anyone else in any other region. I first met John Tennant, the CEO of Canada's Technology Triangle Inc, at the old Comdex show in Las Vegas. I was very impressed with him then as I am today.

The plan he told me about more than five years ago at a virtual dead conference has worked to perfection.

It all has to do with technology. It is the region's core competency. Don't be surprised if within a few years people talk about Waterloo the same way they talk about Toronto, Ottawa or Calgary.

A lot of quick hits for today before I go. It is Monday and that means a lot of people moving. Let's start with the fine PR practitioners at Ketchum. They will be moving offices shortly to PR central in Toronto; the Bloor and Yonge Street area.

Citrix has a new channel chief. Al Monserrat will replace Mitch Parker, who has been promoted.

John H. McAlpine has joined LCD flat panel manufacturer Westinghouse Digital Electronics as its CFO. McAlphine used to be the CFO of Targus.

Finally my best wishes go out to Gerald McGroarty and Pam Masters. Two colleagues of mine that I have a lot of respect and time for.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 1:00 PM, 5/7/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Internet2 experiment held up by homeless man

This is one for the bizarre books. Adam Gaffin of Network World US reports that a homeless man in Boston started a fire that shut down the experimental Internet2 project.

The project, which is also referred to as University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, is a non-profit consortium made up of 208 universities and 60 vendor partners such as Cisco Systems, Intel and Sun Microsystems.

The homeless man threw a lit cigarette that fell on a mattress. The mattress ignited leading to a two-alarm fire on the Longfellow Bridge over the Charles River, which knocked out cables over which the Internet2 service ran between Boston and New York.

This is obviously a fluke and there may be some underlining story on how the downtrodden of this world negate the progress of capitalism, but that is a story for another day.

What it does say is that you need air-tight security these days. The disruption of service from this incident could last three days. That is unacceptable, especially give the fact that this was not a planned attacked in any way.

Two quick hits before I go: George Keller has been named COO of Opalis Software, an up-and-coming software developer in the IT automation field. Keller had been an executive at ASK Group, Ingres, and Novadigm.

Nortel has appointed KPMG as its independent public accountants.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 11:00 AM, 5/4/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

IBM means business

I think it is noteworthy that IBM CEO Sam Palmisano actually attended a PartnerWorld conference.

This is his first since 2004. Competing vendors have always showcased their CEOs at partner conferences. They even made fun of Palmisano not showing up to his own.

As you know, I feel partners are slighted when company chiefs ignore the channel. I felt that with IBM and Palmisano.

However, this time I think his attendance means he is serious about what Big Blue is saying.

They have for years claimed to want to be more of an SMB player and embrace the channel more. With Palmisano basically saying “read my lips,” he has held himself accountable.

So let's take him at his words and get ramped up for IBM in the SMB, the mid-market, in collaboration, virtualization, blade computing, services consulting and SOA. Because this time I think IBM means business.

One quick hit before I go: Avanade Inc., a Microsoft-Accenture joint venture, has hired Jeff Kempiners as its chief technology officer for Canada.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 10:00 AM, 5/2/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Is Dell courting the channel?

It is May Day today. I remember fondly when the tanks and military jets paraded down red square annually on this day to celebrate liberation from the Czar. The only liberation for the people was the day off.

I also wonder on this day if Dell is going to liberate itself from its highly successful, but dreadfully out of date direct business model?

Yesterday's story about the leaked memo is one indication, but there are others.

Late last year Dell showed up at the Gartner IT Vision channel event in Phoenix.

Dell executives also publicly said they would considered the channel as another route to market during analyst conference calls.

Dell does have a Solution Provider program aimed at VARs. This program has built nothing but distrust amongst many partners. Having said that some Canadian partners who I believe outsmarted Dell with this program have found some success in the Canadian market.

In Canada, the channel services a good percentage of Dell boxes. Without that kind of help Dell would be in poor shape in this country. So there are many indicators that say Dell is poised for a change. But, the biggest one in my mind is Acer. Acer has taken the market by storm and they did it with the help of the channel exclusively.

Trust me when I say this. A lot of these executives may think they are geniuses. They will allow the market to believe that they are smarter than everyone else, but in fact they are the same as all of us.

They will look at what is successful and try to copy it. Acer's success in the channel, I believe, is the main reason why Dell may dip its toe in the channel.

One quick hit before I go. CommVault has hired Rob Stroud formerly of EMC Canada and one time top 25 CDN newsmaker along with Wayne Webster as Canadian and federal sales heads.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 10:00 AM, 5/1/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

IT industry gets its kicks

I did not know how much of an attraction Toronto's entry in the new Major League Soccer association has become to the IT industry.

I believed I was the only supporter in this industry. But I am not. At the home opener last Saturday, Laura Mergales of Xerox Canada was at the game. So was Gus Puccin, GM of Oki Data Canada. BEA Canada is planning an event at the new soccer stadium soon.

It is great to see. For those keeping score, Toronto FC lost 1-0 to the Kansas City Wizards. So far in four games played the team has not yet registered a goal, but at least they have connected with the IT industry in Toronto.

One quick hit before I go. Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America's Presentation Products Division has appointed Shoichi "Sean" Suwa as senior vice-president and general manager of its Professional Visual Systems division. Suwa replaces Terry Kawakami, who has returned to Japan to work with Mitsubishi's Electronic System Service Corp. in its corporate planning department in Tokyo.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 11:00 AM, 4/30/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Sun Canada has the smarts

I've got to give the executives at Sun Canada credit for recognizing a potential problem and deciding not to go along with the parent company's plans.

Sun in the U.S. caused a mess in its channel this week by offering customers huge savings if they purchased product directly from it. This promotion was only going to last two weeks, but several Sun partners were upset that the company did this.

Yesterday, Sun sent out an apology to its channel partners.

Some of these discounts were 60 per cent off list, and solution providers do not have the means to match such an offer.

Sun is also going to put in some measures to prevent this from happening in the future.

My advice to them is to look at Sun Canada. When I called they told me they had no intension of pursuing this kind of promotion. So for Sun Canada it was a simply a non-starter.

One quick hit before I go: The office of the Governor General of Canada has announced that James Gosling, a vice-president at Sun and the father of the Java programming language, has been appointed to the Order of Canada. The Order of Canada recognizes outstanding achievement during one's life.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 11:00 AM, 4/27/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Rating CA World parties

I attended not one but two parties on my last day at CA World.

The first was the press party at TAO in the Venetian Hotel and Casino. The second party was the Canadian party at the Tabu Ultra Lounge at the MGM Grand.

Now, it is really tough getting into TAO anytime of the week in Las Vegas. This place right now is the flavour of the month.

I was there two weeks ago for the Cisco Canadian channel get together and I can see why it is tough to get in.

I have to say the TAO party was better. And, I hate myself for saying it because I would rather be with the Canadians. Although a close second to that would be other journalists.

I have to hand it to Don Friedman, the CMO of CA. He managed to attend both. I wonder how he would rate them. I will tell you how I rated them.

The TAO party had a huge advantage because the place serves kobe beef burgers and Red Bull. What a powerful combination. I love those burgers. I also enjoyed the waiter remembering me from the Cisco Canadian channel event two weeks ago. This waiter was so cool. He knew I like the burgers so he kept serving me first before the rest of the crowd got a chance at them.

This enabled me to share these delicacies with Jeff Hayward of CA, PR practitioner Lawrence Cummer, Rob Dutt of another publication, freelancer Dave Chappelle and Kathleen Lau of ComputerWorld Canada. They too enjoyed the food.

Plus the worldwide PR director for CA Dan Kaferle was given a surprise birthday party. So we all had cake.

At the Tabu Canadian party I could tell that this was going to be one of those over-the-top Vegas parties. I talked to some partners and CA Canada channel chief Pino Biase and it was all going great until the bouncer came my way.

According to him, the CA Canada party was over and other revelers had arrived. So he asked me to step away from the sofa I was relaxing on for what he called “Reserved Guests”. Those “reserved guests” were nothing more than some shills.

As the party went on those shills started dancing on the table and sucking on lollipops that I thought might be laced with THC (an ingredient for making marijuana). Now it was entertaining to people watch for sure, but I hate night clubs that practice bumping. I believe in first come; first serve. I got there early and the club let me in. Just because these shills look glamorous does not mean they can waltz in at any time of the night and get seated.

I love Las Vegas, but I am glad I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

One quick hit before I go. Adobe has poached Rob Tarkoff from EMC to be its new senior vice president of corporate development.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 11:00 AM, 4/26/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

North by north-east

One of the surprises I found at the CA conference was a smart plan by CA Canada GM Bernadette Nixon and her channel chief Pino Biase. The two want to empower solution providers to sell their expertise, solutions and service to American customers in the north-eastern U.S.A.

While the idea of Canadian solution providers selling into the U.S. is not unique, the fact that CA Canada's leadership team has put it to paper and issued the opportunity to the channel is a new one to me.

I know that other IT vendors definitely support their partners doing business in the U.S. But it has always been partner inspired never vendor-led.

Nixon's point to me was why should it matter if a Canadian or American partner satisfies a customer on the other side of the border? The goal is to solve that business's IT problems. Sure, there are territory conflicts and other issues. I have always supported that the channel should stay in their lanes. I believe there is no one more adroit at solving a customer's IT pain points than the local reseller.

However, when it comes to advanced technologies there may not be a local solution provider who has that kind of expertise. So what should the customer do? Wait for a local solution provider to come up to speed?

Nixon does have some pull to make this happen. She is also senior vice-president and general manager for the Northeast as well as GM for CA Canada. In a prior role, she was regional manager for CA's New England sales division.

Few of her peers in the Canadian IT industry have this kind of leverage.

During the CA World conference I also had the pleasure of meeting two Canadian-based solution providers who are helping out our American friends. Executives from SCM of Victoria, B.C. and Nexio Technologies of Montreal told me CA gave them these types of opportunities to expand into the U.S. From there they both ventured into other American regions.

This plan is one of those rare cases where the customer wins with a better IT environment, the partner wins by attaining more business they would never get a chance on and CA wins by selling more of its products.

One quick hit before I go: CompTIA has hired Christopher Gardner, whose life was the focus of the 2006 film The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith. Gardner will present a keynote address on his inspirational success story at the Breakaway 2007 in Las Vegas.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 1:00 PM, 4/25/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

From the CA World conference floor

I have been attending CA World conferences since 1996 for many reasons.

First, as I have said in the past, I believe in consistency of coverage.

Second, the shows have always been well organized.

Third, the show is big and when a conference is able to attract many people it tends to be more significant.

Fourth, the executives over the years have been accessible. From Charles Wang to Sanjay Kumar to John Swainson they have all made time for the media. The same can be said for the channel team and people like George Kafkarkou, Chris Devlin and Ira Simon.

The top technology people have been made available to us, such as Russell Artzt and Al Nugent. Top customers and partners have are also around.

Lastly, the executives at CA over the years have a lot of energy. They are even, dare I say it, characters -- people like Joanne Moretti, Chris Devlin, Mark Stabler, George Kafkarkou, Charles Wang, Sanjay Kumar and a lot more.

Bernadette Nixon, the new CA Canada GM, is another high energy person. She radiated that to me during our briefing yesterday. I think this is important because it motivates people. Don't get me wrong, you need button-down people in any organization, but when you see people who are passionate, it makes you passionate.

One quick hit before I go: I was about to politely criticize CA's new channel chief, Bill Lipsin, for canceling his Monday roundtable briefing with the worldwide channel press. The decision to cancel was made the previous Friday, but I was told of it an hour and fifteen minutes before the roundtable was to start. Lipsin was at a CPS kick-off event instead to brief more than 700 channel partners.

I realize that while we play a vital role in the IT industry, meeting with that many partner should take precedence. So I will not criticize him. He was also very gracious to give the Canadian channel press some time after a press conference he was part of. I thought at the time that as a Canadian he should make every effort to meet with the Canadian press. I found Lipsin to be very funny, engaging and he seems to have a lot of energy.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 12:00 PM, 4/24/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Thoughts on CDN's Top 100 solution provider event

I know it is my own event, but I

As you know, CDN was recently acquired by ITWorld Canada, so new owner Michael Atkins was on hand to see this great show for the first time.

His impressions were really positive and he told me he loved meeting all these entrepreneurs from across the country.

Fred Patterson, Symantec's Canadian channel chief, said he likes the Top 100 because he and his team gets a chance to meet and interact with key partners and new partners all in one place.

Michael Lansberg of TSN's Off The Record did an IT version of the show on stage with the top three solution providers and the fastest riser that delivered a lot of laughs.

The team at CDN always weighs the pros and cons of bringing in high profile speakers for the event. The heart of this event is people networking with other people. Anything that gets in the way of that I would try to avoid. I think we executed on this very well and having Lansberg worked because he gave the partners something to talk about with other people in the room, such as some of his funny comments or his prediction on who will play for the Stanley Cup (Buffalo and Anaheim). It became a great opener for more chatting.

I want to thank all the sponsors -- Symantec, NEC Display Solutions, Cisco Systems, and Hewlett Packard Canada Ltd. But I want to specially thank Tech Data Canada, a first-time sponsor of the Top 100, for picking up this event after Ingram Micro decided to pull out.

Finally, a special thanks for his efforts to my publisher, Joe Tersigni.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 12:00 PM, 4/23/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Mike Quinn bids farewell to IBM

Usually after CDN's Top 100 Solution Provider event I would blog about that and tell you how fantastic it was. And it was. But I am not because this morning I learned that IBM Canada's head of communications Mike Quinn has retired.

I cannot say enough good things about him. He is without a doubt one of the classiest individuals I have every met. He is also one of the best in the business.

The thing I liked most about Mike was that he explained things. When I was turned down an opportunity or an editorial request he took the time to explain the reasoning behind it. It was never personal. I have to say I liked that even though it was not what I wanted to hear. Other PR practitioners would just apologize and tell me one of two things: There was nothing he or she could do or tell me it was company policy, which of course would leave me totally frustrated.

Quinn never did that. He was always fair. He also got the most out of the executive team at IBM, who at best did not enjoy the public spotlight.

He was also instrumental in getting me an exclusive interview with John Thompson, former vice-chairman of IBM and president of IBM Canada. That interview was my favourite last year.

Quinn worked at IBM for so many years he stopped counting. He is well respected in the media and with his co-workers.

This is how much of an asset big blue is losing with Quinn's retirement -- the company has replaced him with two people: Mike Boden and Jennifer Balentine. That says it all about Quinn and what he brought to IBM Canada for so many years.

Congratulations, Mike, on a great career, and I along with the team here at CDN wish you the very best in your retirement.

Enjoy the time - you have earned it.

Two quick hits before I go. Industry pioneer and former Ingram Micro Canada president Gord Schofield is the new COO of NexInnovations. I will have more on this in a follow-up story.

Also, long time friend of the channel and CDN Gary Collins, former GM of McAfee Canada and DataMirror, is no longer with London-based solution provider Saltspring.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 12:31 PM, 4/20/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Riding in cars and being interviewed

I do not know why lately I have been conducting interviews with executives in cars.

Just yesterday I was talking to Jeff Hausman of Symantec and he witness a car in front of him getting t-boned. Luckily for him he was parked. The other day Jeff Sampson, CEO of Kineticsware, was in car and I do not know if he was driving or not. And, earlier this year a Microsoft executive from the Bay area, his name escapes me, was driving like a maniac to get to his son's recital.

Guys it is not necessary. I understand we live on Internet time these days. But it is not worth getting into an accident. What this does proved, as if you needed any more proof, is that we are living in a mobile world.

I once conducted an interview in the car. My wife was driving and I interviewing Rick Reid, the president of Tech Data Canada. I managed to get it done, but it was cumbersome taking notes. I can tell you he did not like the story I wrote, but it was accurate.

That was a bad idea and executives should know better.

One quick hit before I go. Gary Grey, the man who helped transistion Rubbermaid from a plastic bin company into an IT company with Dymo printers, has started his own company called Idealab. It is a branding solutions company. We wish him the best of luck.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 10:24 AM, 4/19/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

My meeting with CDW Canada

Well, it went well and I am just amazed at how fast they are growing.

It will hire 100 people this year alone. They have built a classroom to train newly-recruited grads. I met one, and let me tell you something: I am glad I am not competing with her for a job these days.

The key to their whole strategy is tying an account manager to every customer. And, it is a very visible approach through CDW Web site. As a customer you will know if your rep is in because as soon as he or she swipes the card to access the building the Web site is marked with a green “IN”. If the person is not in you get a backup, and if that person is not in you get the manager or another support person. The levels of back up support goes really deep.

And CDW's focus is SMB, companies from 20 to 499 employees. It believes the addressable market here is 200,000 accounts. That is it. Talk about being targeted. They are.

After meeting with them and seeing the operation, it doesn't surprise me now that a sharp executive like Daniel Reio would leave a great job at HP for CDW.

One quick hit before I go: Mary Ann Yule, the director of marketing at CDW Canada, has added purchasing to her laundry list of responsibilities.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 10:24 AM, 4/18/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Meeting with CDW Canada

Today I meet with the fine people at CDW Canada. I will let you know on my blog tomorrow what they say.

What I am most intrigued about is the potential partnership opportunities with the rest of the channel. If it is applicable. CDW Canada may tell me there is no way they will partner with anyone, but given the fact that most channel partners are willing to partner with another channel partner I think it would be foolish if they dismissed it right off the bat.

Look at Softchoice for an example. They developed a program specifically for this. They realize along with every other vendor except for Dell that partnership with the channel in Canada is key. Now CDW Canada is a big company and they are growing at a good clip so there can be several partnership opportunities out there. I will keep you posted.

One quick hit before I go. Mitel announced the appointment of Perry McDonald to the position of director, Channel and Field Marketing for the Americas. McDonald replaces Kevin Johnson who takes on the position of director, Propositions Marketing, responsible for marketing Mitel's business communications solutions. Both positions are based at Mitel's global headquarters in Ottawa.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 11:24 AM, 4/17/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Signs of life from D-Link

After several years covering this industry you get a feel for when change is about to come. I get that feeling from D-Link, which was for a long time a very vocal player in the industry. The company was high profile for what they made and the revenue it generated.

And, then after I think 9/11 you never heard of them. This is very strange for a totally devoted channel organization. Sure the market turned, but it turned on everyone.

D-Link similar to CDN is celebrating its 20^th year in business and that is a great occasion because let's face it business is tough and always has been tough.

It is a great achievement.

But, I think D-Link is poised on making a mini-comeback of sorts. They are investing some money in the channel. They have some new products and in reality if they do not get more visible they will be eaten alive by Cisco/Linksys.

I will keep an eye out for them.

Two quick hits before I go. David Hemler, former Microsoft Canada president before Phil Sorgen has been named Best Buy For Business CEO. Hemler, a native of Minnesota joins the Minneapolis-based IT/CE retailer. Hemler left Microsoft Canada a little over a year ago in a cloud of mystery. He emailed me on his last day at the subsidiary to tell me what a great job he just left and that his circumstances forced him to leave abruptly.

CDN will keep on this story.

For CA CEO Sanjay Kumar has agreed to a U.S. court settlement that will force him to pay almost $800 million in installment throughout the rest of his life. Kumar was sentenced to 12 years in the crowbar saloon for his part in a $1.2 billion accounting fraud scandal. He has not yet set foot in jail, but he has paid about $52 million by selling off some of his real estate holdings, his yacht, and two Ferraris.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 11:24 AM, 4/16/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Targus has a dilemma

Free speech takes a hit

Radio shock jock Don Imus was fired yesterday over his comments about the appearance of the Rutgers University Women's basketball team.

I am not going to get into this debate because it is all over the air waves, online and in print.

I just want to inform you about something a very wise man said a long time ago and then wish you a great weekend.

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That statement comes from Voltaire, a French writer who believed in civil liberties. He lived in the 1700s – a time when freedom of speech would get you killed.

One quick hit before I go. Michael Synder the CEO of Vonage has handed in his resignation. Synder recently had to deal with a court ruling that ordered Vonage to pay $58 million in patent infringement damages to Verizon. He also slashed 10 per cent of the workforce, while cutting $110 million in marketing. Too bad I was just understanding those Vonage TV ads.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 11:00 AM, 4/13/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Targus has a dilemma

One more thing about yesterday's blog on managed services, and then I want to write about Targus.

Silverback cut prices dramatically in an effort to gain more market share. The point I made was that managed services are supposed to save customers money so why price slash? Another point I should have made was that all these MSPs have a utility company business model. But if you look at most utilities such as the gas company, hydro and the water revenue service, their prices or rates go up, not down. And you can't throw out the monopoly argument at that any longer.

Now onto Targus, which is a company we do not cover a lot because they make just notebook bags. They released two products this week. One is a USB Notebook Mouse Internet Phone and the other a USB Internet Phone with keypad. These are accessory-type products with the highest price one being $59.99, but I think it is more a case of brand positioning.

The company has owned the market on notebook bags. Targus soundly defeated Roots when it made a serious challenge to them in the marketplace. The company started to sell locks and other sorts of bag accessories. What more can a company like Targus do? Targus president Zeno Ricci, I am sure, has been mandated to grow the business any which way he can. Every president has that mandate, so the only logical step is to offer higher priced notebook accessories. Do not be surprised if they start selling noise reduction head phones and docking stations. Targus' future may lie in becoming a notebook vendor like HP and Lenovo. That would create some partnership issues for sure. I am not saying it is going to happen, but it is a thought.

One quick before I go. Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski has hired Jeff Townley as its new chief procurement officer. Townley will have to relocate to China, where he will manage all of Nortel's supplier relationships as well as all of Nortel's annual purchases. Townley replaces John Haydon who was named vice-president and GM of the company's network partner solutions and global services.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nibletto, 11:48 AM, 4/12/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Managed services now a commodity

Well, you've got to hand it to SilverBack. They were the first to cave in this high stakes game of chicken in the managed services market.

The Billerica, Mass.-based managed service provider got sick of coming in third behind the two Canadian companies N-Able Technologies and Level Platform Inc or LPI and decided to severely slash its rates in an attempt to gain more market share against rivals.

Now it did cut prices last November, but it did not have much of an affect. N-Able and LPI also cut prices but not at this kind of a rate. This time the wound goes deep. Its desktop monitoring which was at $115 per desktop is now just $30 for a perpetual licence for the year.

The ball is in N-Able and LPI's court right now. They will most assuredly cut prices to remain competitive. The end user will win out on this one, but the losers will definitely be the channel, especially those resellers who were interested in starting a managed services play.

This will also impact solution providers such as Longview Systems who got into the managed services area six years and have successfully built a practice around it.

These kinds of revenue losses for a partner such as Longview will be very harsh because they are being asked by several vendors to invest in their advanced technology plays. That takes money and Silverback has just cramped their style.

Make no mistake there is no turning back from this price slash.

The whole market will now be about price instead of the offering. And, that is a shame because it should be about the offering. Customers in Canada I have found are willing to pay a premium for problem solving technology. Let us not forget that managed services are a way to cut down on IT costs.

Do they want this stuff for free?

One quick hit before I go. Dina Vieira has been named Ingram Micro Canada's new PR manager replacing Jimmy Khattra who has returned to school. She will report to Lizanne McReelis. The good news for Dina is that she will be working for a fine organization. The bad news is that she will have to deal with the channel press.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nilbetto, 10:37 AM, 4/11/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

A tale of two Microsoft executives

Microsoft has produced more millionaires than any company in the history of business. I want to tell you about two of them today, John Wood and Charles Simonyi. I am not judging either of these two men. It is their money and they can do whatever they want with it. They earned that right. But what I find fascinating is the contrast between the two.

Wood is currently the CEO and founder of Room to Read. His story really starts where his career ended at Microsoft in 1998. At the time he left a job that paid him about $1 million a year. Wood said on his Web site that he was overworked at Microsoft and was looking for the quiet solitude of the Himalayas. It was there where he met the Education Resource Officer of Nepal who invited him to visit a local school. Wood came face to face with the harsh reality confronting millions of Nepalese children – there were almost no books for them to read. He saw just two – a Danielle Steele romance and the Lonely Planet Guide to Mongolia. These were books cast off by backpackers.

As Wood left the school the headmaster asked him to donate some books. Wood started e-mailing his friends to ask for their help in collecting children's books, and was overwhelmed with the response. More than 3,000 books arrived within the next two months.

This was one of those life-changing trips people talk about all the time. Wood left Microsoft started Room to Read, a non-profit venture to bring books to kids in areas that did not publish anything.

Wood's strategy with Room to Read was to marry the corporate business practices he learned at Microsoft with an inspiring vision –- to provide the lifelong gift of education to millions of children in the developing world. He contended that with 750 million illiterate adults worldwide and 100 million children without access to school, a non-profit “with the scalability of Starbucks and the compassion of Mother Theresa” was required.

In under 10 years Room to Read has opened 2,000 libraries in the developing world and collected more than 1 million books.

As for Simonyi, as you read this post, he is getting ready to blast off into space for a 13-day visit to the International Space Station. Domestic diva Martha Stewart is on hand to witness the launch and she catered one of the dinners Simonyi and his two Cosmonauts will have in orbit.

Simonyi also made his fortune at Microsoft, developing the popular Word program. He has paid between $20 and $25 million for this space adventure.

You can read about his adventure on his blog at www.charlesinspace.com. I would be remiss to not inform you that Room to Read's Web site is www.roomtoread.org.

One quick hit for before I go: Two major executives from Tellme Networks will not be heading to Redmond when the deal becomes official. Gary Clayton, Tellme's chief creative officer and Victor Chen the manager of products and applications have decided to join Yahoo instead.

- Posted by Paolo Del Nilbetto, 11:23 AM, 4/10/07, pdelnibletto@itworldcanada.com

Cisco Summit hits the heights

OK, I am sure the fine folks at Cisco are more concerned with how the annual Partner Summit measured up than its conference party.

The conference measured up just fine. I have said this before and I will say it again here, a lot of vendors can learn a thing or two from Cisco on how to put on a conference, how to staff it and, more importantly, how to step up with new programs and product to help the channel.

That said, its send-off party the other night at the beautiful Venetian pools (in Vegas) was flat, which is unfortunate.

The main stage act was improvisational comedy instead of the usal American Idol-style karaoke. The karaoke always produced laughs. There was nothing funnier than Chuck Robbins gangsta rap last year in San Diego.

The improv had to be explained to the many partygoers who were still mingling, eating or ordering drinks. It simply did not hit the mark. The other problem was that there was a huge pool in front of the stage so people were unable to view the performances face-to-face.

But the party did have its moments, such as Stefan Dubowski trying to convince Michiel Renzenbrink of Touchbase, a partner based in Amsterdam, that he wasn't Dutch tennis star Yannick Noah or Dutch soccer star Edgar Davids. All right, I confess I may have started that one, but I did not have to motivate Raja Sundaram, senior director of Cisco Services channels, to show off his impressive ballroom dancing moves to the tune of Grand Master Flash's White Lines.

I especially enjoyed Andrew McKay (I'm not sure what he does in the channel) playing waiter and getting everyone drinks on demand. They say services pays a lot more margins, so maybe Andrew look at a developing a new career there.

I did not mind Nadia Cameron, deputy editor of Australian Reseller News, telling stories about one-time work mate Jennifer O'Brien.

Nor did I mind instructing Seaboard analyst Kevin Restivo on winning Black Jack strategies. Again. Kevin, a bust card is six or lower so that means you stay with whatever you have.

I also found it funny that both Gareth Pettigrew and Lang Tibbels of Cisco's communications department did not know who Ann Coulter is.

I enjoyed catching up with T.C. Doyle, former CRN editor and Amazon Consulting analyst, who is now working for Cisco. I also liked Cisco Canada's channel chief Ross Pellizzari new look that he was sporting for the party.

I can go on but I will stop here with this final thought: People make the party and from that perspective the send off party was a winner.

One quick hit before I go: Former CDN assistant editor Jennifer O'Brien will be getting married later this year. I wish her and her mate the very best.

-- Posted by Paolo Del Nibeletto, 12:18 PM, 4/9/07, pdelnibletto@itbusiness.ca

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