In lieu of news and articles, I thought it would be interesting to know what were your computing environment.
The following poll accepts multiple answers
This one is for *developers*
Feel free to comment below about your choice.
In addition to the Mobile Developer Meetup, Station C is hosting “Coder’s Camp” on Saturday, focusing on javascript, AJAX and usage of APIs. As Patrick Tanguay explains, the folks at Station C took advantage of Christian Heilmann coming in Montréal to organize a mini-barcamp:
Christian Heilmann, a well known web developer (Yahoo! UK) who’s written for many respected online publications will be in Montréal end of March, we’ll use the occasion to hold a mini conference centered around javascript, Ajax and APIs. In collaboration with Nurun and Yahoo! Québec, the “Coder’s Saturday” will be held Saturday March 22nd at Station C and will start at noon with a light lunch and a chance to meet everyone.
Other than Heilmann, 3 other presenters are already programmed, we are looking for 4 other subjects to present. Contact us if you are interested but first, register to the event if you want to attend, space is limited to 30 lucky people. (it’s a free event)
If you are developing a “web2.0″ application, then Coder’s Camp is right up your alley. Registration is free, but limited to 30 places. And as I write this, there are only 13 spots free.
The proposal for a Montréal Mobile developer meetup received an unexpected interest, and I have now nearly 20+ people interested in showing up.
I am excited to announce that we have now a venue, which is Station c, 5369 bvd St-Laurent, and a date, which is Friday 21st of March, at 5.30pm
Station C is Montréal’s new coworking space, and I arranged with Patrick Tanguay so that we can use exceptionally the place for this meetup. Thanks, Patrick!
The meetup is open to hackers, developers, user interface designers, or anyone interested in mobile applications and its usage. The format of the event will be barcamp’s — we will have an open schedule/live wiki, and anyone wishing to talk about a special topic can just write an entry. If you have been to RococoCamp, then we are heading to exactly the same format.
As always, be prepared to share, and also come with your mobile devices/laptops/tools.
Savoir Faire Linux, a company dedicated to Linux and Free Software solutions, has sued the Régie des Rentes du Québec this week, for choosing Windows Vista for its computers, without call for bids.
The Régie des Rentes du Québec is using currently Windows 2000 for its systems, but as support for the OS is phased out by Microsoft, the agency must now migrate to another OS. The Régie des Rentes chose Windows Vista, viewed as a natural “software update”.
Savoir Faire Linux’s position is that Windows Vista is a major migration and a change of OS, which should then be done via a call for bids. Furthermore, Savoir Faire Linux says current versions of Linux are more than capable of serving the agency’s IT needs, and that they will also save millions of dollars in the process.
This is the first time in North America that a governement agency is sued for not using open source software. There are previous cases though in Europe, most notably in Germany and in France where whole governement agencies and ministries are now running open source software.
In this case, Vista was not the wisest of choice for the Régie des Rentes, as it is an OS widely known for its shortcomings. However, Savoir Faire Linux is not the white knight either in this case. They are service providers specialized in Linux, and should the systems be migrated to Linux, they would be amongst the first to benefit financially from the deal.
A while ago, I was pitched by Ali Karbassi from Idée Inc. who wanted to introduce the idea of lunch2.0 in Montréal. They were organizing it in Toronto and were looking into starting some kind of nation-wide movement. We were shaping up Blitzweekend though, and also I didn’t see the need of this kind of event, as we already had the Montreal Tech Entrepreneur Breakfast. The name was also a bit too fancy for my taste (or maybe I have missed something here?)
The idea of having of a peak at the offices of a few local startups was interesting though, so here is a new series entitled Desk project. The idea is to get a picture of a work desk so that you would be able to guess what it’s like to be in a Montréal startup.
Harry Wakefield’s desk, co-founder and CEO of praized. Harry also runs mocoloco, a top “modern contemporary design & architecture” blog. Notice the iPhone and the super-secret design specs at the back
Eric Reiher’s work desk, founder of Mobivox, a VOIP startup.
Here is Mark MacLeod’s desk, Mobivox’s CFO, great startup blogger and F1 fan. He seems to know where are his priorities.
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan’s work desk. Ashkan is the CEO and founder of Watchmojo, also a great communicator (was VP of sales) and a prolific blogger at hipmojo. Recently featured for their distribution deal with Hulu
Marc Gingras’s work desk. Marc is the founder and CEO of Tungle. He is also a serial entrepreneur, a talented salesspokesperson, and also the kind of guy who knows practically every investor and fund in Montreal.
Hugh McGuire’s work desk. Hugh McGuire started Librivox, the cornerstone of audio books on the Internet, currently works on earideas and also lots of new ideas coming.
Hoped you enjoyed it.
If you are an entrepreneur or in a startup in Montréal, send pictures at news@montrealtechwach.com and we will start a new series.
I am also looking into starting a series if you are a freelancer/webdesigner/web programmer. well if you have interesting pictures, that is.
IGDA-Montreal is now making a call for mini-presentations to be given at the upcoming GameCamp on March 26th at the SAT.
The “GameCamp” night is a format inspired by events like BarCamp, 20:20, PechaKucha, FooCamp, etc. GameCamp will feature up to 15 mini 6-minute presentations on a multitude of topics/formats, like:
- rant or rave
- game/tech demo
- learning lecture
- research
- etc…
When? March 26th
Where? SAT
Cost? $5 for non-IGDA members
You can see it as a sign that blogging is now very popular. Or just a niche movement by a few creative writers. Nevertheless, the idea is creative.
What: Café-Blog, read your favourite blog post.
When: Sunday 16th March, 3h30pm
Where: 2025, rue Parthenais.
From Ze Canada
The new provincial budget proposed by Quebec’s finance minister Ms Monique Jerome-Forget is very good news for any startup or high-tech companies in Québec. One of its main highlight is the new tax credit for the development of e-business (or “Crédit d’Impôt pour le développement des Affaires Électroniques”), which is much more interesting than was avalaible previously. High-tech companies will get a refundable tax credit of 30% of employee salaries, if they have more than 6 employees. The refund is capped at $20.000 for each employee.
Previously, tax credit programs for tech companies/startups were restricted to a few industries and special neigborhoods, like the Cité du Multimédia or the E-Commerce place. In contrast, this new tax credit program will be avalaible throughout the province and practically to any startup, although criterias of admission will be defined by Investissement Québec each year.
In practice, this means you can attract talent throughout the world to Montréal or Quebec, offer competitive salaries, and still get competitive costs. You can for example offer a salary of $67.000 yearly to a developer, and the governement will then pay back $20.000 to support this job.
Another new measure was bumping tax credit for research & development to $3 million, limited to $2 million previously.
Finally, it also introduced a new program entitled “Communautés rurales branchés à Internet”, aimed at connecting areas of Québec still not connected to high-speed internet, which is roughly 10% of the territory. The Quebec government will spend $20m yearly to equip municipalities with Wifi, as they found out that fiber optics is a costly technology.
IMHO, this is great, especially the first measure which will give a competitive edge to startups and hopefully foster local new technology companies. Of course, it’s just a drop in the ocean ($25.47 billion to be spent in healthcare, $13.98 billion for education …), and I wished they setup a program to make technology more attractive in higher education.
In case you haven’t noticed, the VC TV team is back, I stumbled into theam at MontrealStartup’s press conference. Kristina said they are planning to expand and produce much more video content than what they have done last year. Here a video of John Stokes explaning MSU’s raison d’être.
The InterLogiq Network is holding a conference and networking event entitled Capital Innovation 2008 this afternoon and evening at the St-James Club, a “prestigious” club for “business leaders”.
The event starts at 2pm with 3 keynotes, by Dan Mothershill, president of the National Angel Organization, Austin Hill, Mario Limoges, who will talk about investment opportunities in technology.
6 projects/startups will also get to present to the audience, and a cocktail presented as a networking opportunity will close the event.
As was the case throughout 2008, VC activity preferred Québec IT sectors in the third quarter. A total of $56 million was invested in 18 IT companies, or just over half of all disbursements, which is consistent with trends in the two prior quarters. But in comparison with the $63 million invested one year ago, IT-related activity fell 11% in Q3.
To the consternation of Twitter users, the site often falters amid the demands of processing millions of tweets a day. One possible solution to this problem is on display at Identi.ca, the site that looks most identical to Twitter. What's different is under the hood: Nearly 100 different sites are sharing the load. "Instead of a single service, we're part of a federated network of microblogging sites running open-source software," says Evan Prodromou, who launched Identi.ca this past summer. He expects the service to mushroom from its current base of 30,000 to 500,000 within a year, and thinks it will surpass Twitter in users by 2010.
Local investors are gearing up for Capital Innovation 2009, an event organized for March next year by Amiral Partenaires. The event will gather private investors such as VC funds, angel investors and fund managers; and is aimed at showcasing high-potential ventures needing from $100k to $1M. For the event, BDR Capital, ID Capital, iNovia Capital, JLA, MSU and Propulsion Ventures will be selecting 12 ideas which will be presented to investors during the event. Deadline on Nov. 28th for applications:
Weblocal is different though from their previous projects since it allows users to sign up, review + recommend businesses, tag them, as well as upload pictures and photos. It also has a mobile version. Lots of user-generated content then, which puts weblocal in the same category as other websites such asmonavis.ca or praized.
They stay true to the original vision, which is to provide companies a full array of tools highlighting the company’s best traits, making thus the company more appealing to prospective candidate
Standoutjobs whichfirst launched at DEMO last year has announced last week they have launched “version two”of their product.
he Main will become a wireless Internet playground by year's end, thanks to the merchants' association of the world-famous boulevard. The Société de développement du boulevard Saint-Laurent will provide free Internet access from Sherbrooke St. to Mount Royal Ave. to attract and retain more visitors and to push promotions onto tourists.
Flow Ventures invests in and accelerates startups. Our unique model combines financing, strategy and hands-on operational services designed to grow new ventures quickly and efficiently. Flow can accelerate your startup by operating key areas of your startup including finance, software development, HR, business development and administration. This allows entrepreneurs to focus on their products and their customers rather than building infrastructure and capacity.
Standout Jobs, a leading provider of Web-based tools to power companies’ online recruiting efforts, today announced the general availability of version two of its web-based Recruitment Communication Platform. Previously dubbed “Reception” while in beta, Standout Jobs’ Recruitment Communication Platform boasts many new features and updated functionality proven successful with more than 200 beta customers since the company’s launch at DEMO in January 2008.
La rive-sud de Montréal c’est bien évidemment PRATT & WHITNEY, HÉROUX-DEVTEK, 3M , BOMBARDIER, ou encore DANONE . Mais il existe en Montérégie, bien d’autres PME de domaines aussi diversifiés que les télécommunications, la chimie, la pharmaceutique, l’informatique, l’environnement, l’agriculture, l’agro-alimentaire, l’électronique etc.
My research shows that more than a third of the region's workforce comes from the creative class - scientists, technology workers, entertainers, artists and designers, as well as managers and financial types - putting it in the top 10 per cent of all regions in North America, and a global leader as well. Nearly a fifth of the Montreal region's workforce forms a super-creative core made up of the techies plus cultural and entertainment types.
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