Montreal Tech Watch

Patrick Lauzon, executive VP from Canoe, and who also blogs at 01entrepreneur.ca, and Austin Hill, angel investor and entrepreneur, hosted yesterday the Founders&Funders dinner, which gathered 75 angel investors, Venture Capitalists, and startup founders in technology. In essence, the event is very similar to Benjamin Yoskovitz‘s tech entrepreneur breakfast; however, there were more attendees for this dinner and each of them was “hand-picked”. There were also investors who came from NYC and Toronto, and I guess they would have never made it to the monthly breakfasts.

I was invited by Austin Hill, as this was the perfect opportunity to introduce the map and invite companies and founders to be in the database.

I have to say I have never met or worked with Austin Hill or Patrick Lauzon, prior to this week, and I was quite impressed by what they achieved for the event, by reaching out to their respective contacts, by supporting the idea of the technology map, by making sure there was a healthy mix of entrepreneurs, VCs, angels etc. They also made sure founders & funders met, “connected”, and also spurred discussions and debates around the state of technology entrepreneurship in Montréal and in Québec. I don’t know if deals initiated during the event, but it was the perfect formula to make connections, match entrepreneurs, and get things forward. At the end, attendees were asking for another edition soon.

I have been to the Ventures West cocktail 2 weeks ago, which was was a great networking event for VCs, but was little use for everyone else. In contrast, the Founders&Funders dinner was much more productive and successful. Big thanks then to Austin Hill, Patrick Lauzon, and also to iNovia Capital and MontrealStartup who supported the event.

The federal government unveiled yesterday the final rules for next year’s May auctions, which are largely in favour of new companies in the wireless industry. 40% of the new 105Mhz wireless spectrum will be reserved for new entrants, and existing telecommunications companies are to share their existing infrastructure with these new players.

This might just be the week’s biggest news; and certainly a big win for Canadians, one that will change their practices and how they will use their cell phones. More competition means plans (especially data plans) will be more affordable, and more Canadians will be able to use mobile services. It’s also a big sign for technology entrepreneurs and mobile software developers who can (finally) reach a local market.

Previously, it was nearly impossible to launch a mobile carrier in Canada due to costs and regulations which required any mobile carrier to cover most populated regions on Canada. This had the consequence of raising fixed costs for carriers, and thus raised prices of plans and services offered to subscribers.

On the telcos front, Bell Canada, Telus and Rogers are officially scandalized, while Videotron and regional players praised the federal governement for the move. They should understand though that if prices are going down, we will get a more flexible market, much more active users, and this will be good for everyone, for Canadians and telecom companies alike.

StartupNorth has also an enthusiastic post by Thomas Purve and comments about the news.

Jean Fahmy, who defines himself as a “serial entrepreneur” in technology, has just opened a new blog at jeanfahmy.com, where he writes about entrepreneurship and technology.

Just out of university, Jean Fahmy started in Montréal an outsourcing services company with 12 employees, managed an ISP, built a mobile software company, and is now a professor in entrepreneurship at L’École Polytechnique Montréal. He has a great track of success and could possibly be a role model for every entrepreneur in Montréal. I am quite sure he has a startup project in his hands currently.

Raymond Luk, who is working with us on Blitzweekend, and FacebookWeekend in Toronto, is telling me he has office space avalaible for rent:

It’s a beautiful space with shared conference room, kitchen, server room etc. The location is also great, overlooking Square Victoria. There’s enough pace for 10-15 developers and 5 closed offices. A couple of the companies we share with are moving at the end of the year.

It would be a perfect space for a startup or expanding tech company and Flow is a great neighbour!

Raymond Luk can be contacted at rluk@flowconsulting.ca

I made a while ago a map of Montréal (version 1 – version 2) which provided some insight on what was going in Montréal in technology. Many were interested, but it’s true that these were more entertaining than useful.

With Austin Hill and other technology entrepreneurs in Montréal, we are currently trying to geographically map people, companies, startups, web projects, and I am now inviting you to fill out the form.

As written in the page, the map will then be publicly avalaible. We will probably make a spreadsheet document as well.

Thank you!

QuebecTorrent.com, a local torrent tracker, is entagled in a lawsuit started last month by the Canadian music industry. They received first a cease&desist order, but eventually won this first attempt and are still online. The case is just starting though, with ongoing developments.

Of course, record companies like Sony BMG, EMI, Universal Music Canada are describing themselves as victims, and the website’s owner and administrator as pirates who ripped off hard-working artists. On the other hand, QuebecTorrent’s owner, Sébastien Brulotte, changed the website’s “mission” for personal uses only, is calling his community’s members’ help, and is asking for help on various websites, notably digg. Furthermore, he was alarmed that the case would make a jurisprudential case and make thus all p2p websites like IsoHunt or TorrentBox in Canada illegal.

I have no knowledge of Québec&Canadian law about peer-to-peer sharing and fair use, but here is nonetheless a comment by a Canadian who owns a web hosting company:

I’m not sure what is going on in Quebec But I believe it is more to do with the law not understanding what a torrent site is and the plaintiff’s trying to say the site holds the media itself. That here in Canada is 100% illegal. Though hosting index files related to a site is not. Therefore any torrent site that does not (Seed or Upload from the server) can not be charged with committing a crime. There even was a ruling by the supreme court of Canada in regards to downloading mp3’s that it is the same thing as going to a library and photo coping a page out of a book which people have been doing for decades. I’m sad to hear other company’s are not willing to defend their clients rights in a matter that is 100% ill legit. I do hope Quebec Torrents holds their ground and their host step up and help them instead of bowing to pressure that is unjust.

Surprisingly, the case has little to no press in the local press. I stumbled upon an article at La Presse which describes QuebecTorrent administrators as criminals who are about to be busted by the GRC. Other media groups in the province, like Québecor, are known to work hand-in-hand with the music industry.

Eidos were the first to make news this week by oficially opening their new Montréal studio yesterday, after announcing it in February this year. The new studio is headed by Stéphane d’Astous, with a staff of over 200, and will be working on the next version of the hit title Deus Ex.

This was only the beginning though. Today was the Montréal International Game Summit, which is a 2-day conference gathering game developers and companies. Amusement Cyanide, a French company which does niche video games, announced they will be opening a local studio, with a staff of 65. Javaground, an american company which does games for mobile phones, also announced they will be opening a game dev center in Montréal. This is all very good news; I’ve heard the mayor M. Tremblay calling Montréal the “cité des arts numériques” last week. He sometimes exaggerate numbers but I agree with him on this one. 

Although there are startups who are doing well and growing in Montréal, like Akoha, Standoutjobs, or Mobivox, there have been numerous worrying reports about Capazoo, which was officially launched last October. People are calling the founders scum bagss, another MTW reader said they were dishonest with their employees, and I was told they were downsizing this week 50 out of their 60-strong development team, which makes them the black sheep of Montréal startups.

Of course, these might just be rumors, but they might be also signs about capazoo’s misguided efforts. Their technorati trackbacks are flat, and alexa shows they had more visitors November last year than what they have currently, although they officially launched the website last October (!). An “unofficial” blogreveals that in fact they launched in 2006, but failed to get traction, and that’s why they did it again in October 2007.

Official press releases don’t do them justice either. 11 days ago, they struck a deal with Savvis, which will provide them virtual servers and data centers facilities for $5 million. Who the hell pays $5 million to host your website? Certainly not a web entrepreneur, who would rather get an EC2 account from Amazon if he/she really wants a scalable infrastructure.

I really hope I am proven wrong, that their investors didn’t play the lottery game and thoroughly checked that the founders and the management team were wise, smart, honest and perfectly know the web space before putting in $25 million.

La Presse had a story yesterday about the Ville de Montréal and Ile-Sans-Fil in talks to install and deliver free, public WiFi in public parks and busy places in Montréal. The City would give the non-profit organization $200 000 each year to manage and monitor the hardware and pay for the Internet fees. 

This would bring WiFi to a next level in Montréal, where there are actually more than 200 free, public hotspots. It’s now common to come into a coffee shop and discover at least 10 or more people working on their laptops. Having WiFi in public parks and spaces would increase the technology’s rate of adoption; although we certainly won’t have Montréalers working on laptops, but most probably devices like the iPod or wifi-enabled cell phones. 

For instance, the Skype Phone is WiFi-enabled and would enable Montréalers to use Skype thanks to Ile-Sans-Fil’s network.

I still have open questions though. The city of Paris in France had a similar project but it was attacked by France Télécom this summer as illegal as they were also selling a subscription service to Parisians who wanted mobile WiFi. Here, Montréalers who live near parks and public spaces could get in theory free Internet access, and I don’t see Bell, Telus or Rogers seeing idly their customers going away. 

Cyberpresse vient juste de sortir une interface simplifiée et optimisée pour les utilisateurs d’iPhone ou iPod Touch disponible sur apple.cyberpresse.ca Les visiteurs n’ont donc plus besoin de “pincher” et de cliquer sur des liens miniscules. De plus, les photos sont aussi reformatées pour s’adapter à la taille de l’écran.

Pour moi, c’est une réussite, une des meilleurs interfaces utilisateurs pour l’iPhone (après celui de facebook), qui permet de connaître rapidement les titres du jour mais aussi de lire très facilement un article. On a quasiment envie qu’ils l’utilisent sur leur site principal.