Montreal Tech Watch

Company: Inverse

Position: Senior software developer

Responsibilites and Tasks: Your main responsibilities will be to contribute to the development of the SOGo solution while participating in the deployment and support of clients groupware solutions.

Required Knoweledge:
• Bachelor or master degree in computer science or computer engineering or equivalent professional experience
• Excellent knowledge of the C, Objective-C, Java and JavaScript programming languages
• Excellent knowledge of the GNU development tools
• Good knowledge of the Mozilla project and in the development of Firefox or Thunderbird extensions
• Good knowledge of database systems such as MySQL and PostgreSQL
• Passionate about Free and Open Source Software
• Passionate about innovative technologies and teamwork
• Handle well pressure and tight deadlines
• Capable of travelling to client sites (United States and Europe)

Additional info: Please send us your resume at the following email address: rh@inverse.ca.

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Videorix is a new online service that allows video content producers to look for potential ads for their videos.

Videorix allows companies and brands to create a logo and a tagline, that video producers can include at the beginning of their video. In the current system, the producer is paid by video, and not by views (since the latter information is controlled by the platform (youtube, dailymotion, …) where the video is distributed )

Videorix is brought up by Nadim Elgarhy, who already did Brandfame. This was covered earlier in MontrealTechwatch. However, Brandfame was focused on product placement, and the video producer had to find a way to showcase the product somewhere in the story. This process is lenghty, fastiduous, and not always possible for the video producer. That’s how Videorix came up, which has less barriers of entry for video producers and might just be an easier pill to swallow for videographers who want to keep their independence in regards to sponsors.

This will undoubtably get more mass traction than Brandfame, although I am betting that it’s not the only service of its kind either. Even then, the day it will be massively successful, this is the kind of service that Youtube/Google could do in a snap. But what the videorix founders could do is prove that this means significant revenus for video producers, and also gain a significant market share — or better yet, prove that this can be a signicant revenue/business model for all the people who upload videos to youtube.

OZ received this week $10 million funding from Wellington Fund, a Toronto-based fund specialized in venture debts for growing companies.

OZ provides Instant Messenging plus many other applications such as mobile email or mobile social presence. You might have never heard of the company, because they sell the solution directly to wireless carries, such as Bell, AT&T, T-Mobile, Rogers, Sprint etc.

OZ announced they will be using the funds to develop new products, such as mobile social networking.

From Wireless North.

Morgan Stanley, a Wall Street investment bank, has opened yesterday an IT development center in Montréal, investing up to $200 million and creating 500 jobs in 5 years.

The bank already has 18 other IT development centers throughout the world, and was considering opening a new center in an Eastern Europe country, but chose finally Montréal.

This tells a lot about Montréal, where salaries are much lower than those found in New York city. The province also introduced recently new tax credits, up to 30% of the salary for each employee, with Morgan Stanley being the first big company to benefit from it. A third reason why Montréal was chosen was that it had the same time zone as New York city. I am not sure that the word “offshore” development center was used, but when the bank representative talked about developping systems for the New York City office, it pretty much looks like it.

Great news then for finance/math/CS grads. Great also because this might spun off a couple of finance-related emerging companies.

For those who came to Blitzweekend (view reports about the event), you might be interested in the Ottawa Web Weekend event, which is due in 10 days. The goal is to gather a group of entrepreneurs and developers to create a startup in one weekend, much alike the original startupweekend format.

Unfortunately, we hadn’t anyone from Ottawa coming to Blitzweekend, but I was in touch with Marc-André Plouffe for a while to get them to send a team to Blitzweekend. He’s been helpful in spreading the word there, and so I want now to publicize this.

So get there for one weekend if you want to know what’s a startup like, and have the thrill of creating a product in just 2-3 days. Who knows, maybe that’s what you were born for; and it might just be the starting point for bigger plans.

This might look as a last-minute recall (unless you are on twitter or facebook), but if you are into technology and startups, we’ve got a cocktail/get-together/startupdrinks at 5pm, at Café Santos, 191 St Paul Street. Everyone welcomed!

More about the concept

The Facebook event page 

When Tanya McGinnity first told me about her idea, I was thrilled. Who wouldn’t be? The premise is simple: find a girl geek to speak about an exciting project, hunt down a restaurant that will host a group dinner, and let people mix.

Now simple as that sounds, it isn’t easy to organize. So after the first Montreal Girl Geek Dinner ended in a resounding success, Tanya’s been working hard to host one a month.

There have been talks ranging from starting your own business to hacking on open source software to innovative computer games. Because Montreal is fast becoming an exciting place for technology, there’s no surprise that it’s full of talented geeky women.

Recently, I found a chance to interrupt her busy schedule to ask her a few questions.

Tanya McGinnity
Originally uploaded by Simon Law.

Who are you and what do you do?

I’m a transplanted Maritimer who, due to cod-overfishing, needed to find a new job. So I landed a gig with Matrox Graphics way back in the pre-bubble days.

After the bubble burst, I got into digital marketing and project management with some cool web firms here in Montreal. Now I am currently freelancing with ihaveanidea.org as their Director of Social Medification and webology.

How did Girl Geek Dinners get started?

Montreal Girl Geek Dinners are an offshoot of the London Girl Geek Dinners, started by the awesome Sarah Blow who also runs the Girly Geekdom blog which I contribute to (albeit sporadically!)

What inspired you to start Girl Geek Dinners in Montreal?

Montreal is an incredible city and there are so many interesting and innovative things going on in all sectors—the music scene, startups, film, arts and so on. As a tech geek by trade, I would attend tech events and see that there weren’t too many girls in the crowd. I came across a video clip from one of the Barcamp events where Martine Pagé asked the crowd “Where are the Women?” and I felt like maybe there was something to be explored in creating some smaller scale mixers where girls could hone their presentation skills and meet other people who are as jazzed about being geeky.

Who shows up?

Mainly girls, but we do get quite a few guy geeks too. Most people who attend are invited by someone who has attended a previous event and many others are new Montrealers who are looking to meet new people. There have only been four dinners, so we are a new group but we’re looking to grow and evolve.

What happens at each event?

We eat. We talk. We network. We exchange business cards. A featured speaker gives a presentation on a topic. Then dessert and the cheque. So far, we’ve had dinners featuring Heather Kelley, Angela Byron, Aleece Germano, Kim Vallee and Bronwen Zande.

Heather
by Simon

Angie
by Simon

Aleece
by Janina

Kim
by Simon

Bronwen
by Simon

What topics are you looking for?

Absolutely anything, as long as you are geeky about it. There are plans to do sessions on time-management, comics, nutrition, rock-bands, developing negotiating skills, crafts, as well as some “surprises” in the works.

How can people get involved?

Visit the blog or our Facebook group for more information.

I’m looking for speakers, restaurant suggestions, translators, event planners, help with promotion and anything else that could help this group evolve and meet everyone’s needs. It takes a village to grow a nation of geeks.

Special article by Simon Law.
Photographs by Janina Szkut and Simon Law,
used under Creative Commons licenses.

The Web 2.0 Expo revealed the ever-growing fascination with everything mobile.

An expert in the field of Mobile Design, Brian Fling declared that the iphone is already 0.09% of all web traffic.This may be true . Remember, not long ago Google announced that it had 50 times more searches on iphone than on any other handset.

While Apple is preparing for the Apple Developers conference, Nokia is still the overwhelming dominant mobile manufacturer. They have 39% of the market , more than the three next suppliers combined! – Motorola, Samsung and LG. Recently, Nokia has announced the next stage of its Widget platform for Symbian Series 60 smartphones. The new stage will give developers access to GPS, contacts book, communications stacks, e-mail and SMS functions on the phone.

For Marc Davis, Yahoo’s social media guru, there’s no doubt that the future is about mobility . “The next web,” he says “will be about place and time.”

Yes, the mobile web 2.0 is pounding at the gates.

Last summer, I read a very interesting book called Mobile Web 2.0 by Ajit Jaokar and Tony Fish.

In it they enunciate the seven principles of mobile web 2.0 :

1) Mobile Content captured at the moment of inspiration - like photo, twitter,etc. (Last week a student twittered his way out of jail!)

2) I am a tag, I am not a number- freedom from the restrictions of various network operators.

3) Multilingual mobile access.

4) Digital Convergence.

5) AJAX/Widgets.

6) Location-based services.

7) Mobile search.

Clear and concise definition of mobile web 2.0. Now bring on the applications.

With the (locked) iphone (3G version ? Probably) coming soon to Canada, courtesy of the sole GSM operator here, Rogers, it’s time to rrrummblllee.

StartupIndex.ca was unveiled this evening at StartupCampToronto. It’s a joint effort by Jevon MacDonald, Jonas Brandon, Ali Asaria and Chris Long, and provides a crowd-sourced database of Canadian startups and investors.

StartupIndex has already in its database most Canadians startups and VC funds, and paints a broad picture of the Internet / ecommerce / web2.0 / media startup landscape. You are also invited to register and contribute if you notice incorrect or missing information.

The website has strong similarities with CrunchBase, a Techcrunch property which does more or less the same thing. In its current state, one can call it a clone of CrunchBase; although this wouldn’t be fair. As Jevon MacDonald writes, their final objective was to provide to the community a useful tool, and get better exposure for startups based in Canada:

By tracking startup activity nationally we can start to build more awareness of which startups are worth watching, we can also quickly find out which Investors are doing deals and which ones are less active. The “Wheat from the Chaff” as they say.

This is also an opportunity to find out the truth about the Canadian Startup community. Is it dead or alive? We can either put grand claims to rest, or we can light a fire under them.

There is a parallel to be made here with StartupNorth. With its focus in Canada, the blog has played a major role in raising the profile of the country, in levels unheard of one year ago, and convinced entrepreneurs that there’s actually a scene and an industry worth staying in Canada. StartupIndex becomes then a natural expansion in StartupNorth’s mission, a tool that will provide valuable information for future and existing entrepreneurs, investors and the media.

If you are an entrepreneur, you can use it for instance to get an initial list of potential investors in your space, or maybe try to connect with startups and work out partnerships. You can also use it to evaluate term sheets and typical VC investments. So it’s definetely a great project that I welcome. Congrats to the team!

The Rogers group announced their Q1 results this morning, all very good news, great revenue by user, etc. And then Ted Rogers announced they’ll have the iPhone on their product line this year, in Canada.

The announcement in itself is less than 3 lines, and I refuse to speculate or add anything to the announcement. Just saying that since he likes to practise brevity, he should get a twitter account. Although I guess he will be too busy collecting the Rogers tax getting all of your paychecks in the bank.