Montreal Tech Watch

Comments

• Posted by Fagstein, July 22nd, 2007 12:41 pm
  

  Though it’s perhaps not necessarily the most important reason, the availability of bilingual workers is something Montreal is ideal for. This is the most bilingual city in Canada, and if you’re going to service people in both languages, you need workers who understand them both. We have plenty of those here.

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• Posted by IM2 | OQP » What is Montréal’s best advantage for launching a startup?, July 22nd, 2007 2:15 pm
  

  [...] What is Montréal’s best advantage for launching a startup? [...]

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• Posted by Heri, July 22nd, 2007 9:28 pm
  

  fagstein: I was thinking about that when writing diversity in Montréal. You can also find many spanish-speaking people – and italian and portuguese and chineese people in montréal. i should have written multiculturalism I guess

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• Posted by Heri, July 22nd, 2007 9:36 pm
  

  for all readers, I think I have forgotten a few important choices that you can put in “other”:
  - presence of PR firms
  - presence of UI design consultants
  - presence of organizations (yes entrepreneur, CDEC/CLD…)
  - meetups and cohesion of local tech community
  - quality consultants, strategy consultants
  - sales trainers, management coaches
  - and let’s not forget video production which is the tool of choice for marketing these days

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• Posted by eric_technomtl, July 23rd, 2007 9:00 am
  

  I’m very tempted to check every item on the list. All of them contribute, in their own way, to making Montreal what it is: an exciting place to launch a startup.

  However, there’s one item that’s not on the list and will take some time to get on there. Mentoring. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and strong in Quebec and there are successful tech entrepreneurs to show for it. However, the up-and-comers (and there are a lot out there at the moment) could benefit from the experience of others who have gone before them.

  Sylvain Carle and I had a brief discussion about this a couple of Tech Entrepreneur breakfast’s ago. In the Silicon Valley, they are on the third generation of tech entrepreneurs. We’ve gone through a first generation and are developing a new generation. Hopefully we’ll be able to bridge the gap and skip a generation or two, so we’re no longer playing catch-up.

  I think this is coming, with the current openness and cohesion of the tech community, things are looking good.

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• Posted by Robin, July 23rd, 2007 9:31 am
  

  In french, but interesting nonetheless: Emploi : Montréal surpasse Toronto grâce à l’éducation

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• Posted by Heri, July 23rd, 2007 10:04 am
  

  robin: the globe and mail had the same conclusions, saying that Québec has a far better education system than Ontario, and that ultimately, education wins. thanks for the link. :-)

  eric: i have heard a lot about mentoring but haven’t heard of practical examples. well not yet. I have an upcoming project with “les affaires” about experience transfer from the baby boomers to the younger generation. we will see how this come up. (can’t disclose more than that)

  by the way, yes montréal has very good advantages for launching a startup, although we should also work on the issues and how to improve it. that’s why i have started a series on this blog about other cities and how they are doing, what are their structures and how is entrepreneurship. there was a post about ottawa recently, and there should be more coming.

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• Posted by Lyne, July 23rd, 2007 9:59 pm
  

  Hello Heri (and all!),

  For your piece on mentoring, make sure you talk with the Fondation de l’entrepreneurship (http://www.entrepreneurship.qc.ca). They put in place a nice network of experienced managers who can support our young entrepreneurs. We hope to be able to tap into this for our ICT companies.

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• Posted by Robin, July 24th, 2007 7:41 pm
  

  “the technological infrastructure” didn’t get any votes, yet iWeb was rated the 7th most reliable internet host according to http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/07/08/tiscali_is_most_reliable_hosting_company_in_june_2007.html

  And we got Koumbit: http://koumbit.org/ :)

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• Posted by Heri, July 25th, 2007 9:48 am
  

  Robin: i think everybody though that québec is very late in mobile networks. and this is a big problem.

  i do agree though that in broadband internet, ISPs and in other areas, montréal is at the forefront.

  hmmm….. koumbit has its own servers? do they lease it or do they own it?

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• Posted by Robin, July 25th, 2007 10:22 am
  

  Koumbit owns its servers, it also does community colocation, vservers, vhosts, etc. I’m not sure where they are hosted anymore. More info on the community colocation program is here: http://wiki.koumbit.net/CommunityColocationProject

  Non-profit doesn’t mean ressourceless ;)

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• Posted by Heri, July 25th, 2007 10:04 pm
  

  robin: apparently, they use iWeb’s facility

  http://wiki.koumbit.net/IwebDotCa?highlight=%28iweb%29

  http://wiki.koumbit.net/TermsOfService/ExempleIweb?highlight=%28iweb%29

  which is the most logical place in montréal.

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• Posted by Is Montreal Illuminated? | Montreal Tech Watch, September 6th, 2007 9:17 am
  

  [...] spends a great deal of time on MTW, wondering out loud if Montreal is, or is becoming, an international [...]

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• Posted by hughmcguire.net · cities and creativity, November 23rd, 2007 9:07 am
  

  [...] Montreal is ideally attractive to the creative class — funky, cheapish, fun, mixed, vibrant etc — but there are all sorts of problems here. For pros and cons, see the discussion from a while back over at Heri’s MontrealTechWatch. [...]

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