Montreal Tech Watch

I went to an event last thursday on bvd St-Laurent, expecting a democamp-style presentation, instead discovering that the Akoha team did in fact organized a party. If I didn’t meet technology people, I would have thought this was the launch of a movie or a party thrown by a pop star. Austin Hill invited rock singer David Usher, cameras and video cameras were there, drinks and fancy snacks were provided, all in an upscale and trendy bar.

Add that to the pre-screening of attendees and a frieNDA, and also the fact that nobody really knew what the hell these guys were doing, and we have all the ingredients for buzz and excitement.

When the entrance closed, Austin Hill presented to the audience Akoha, telling the project’s story, how he met the co-founders, a bit of personal story, lots of illustrations, a rant about meaningless video games, and then presented the product …

… which I can’t tell you about, since it’s so secret .. I am not sure what books he read, or what previous experiences he had to think about this, or which PR agent guided him on this strategy; but this was very efficient since it drove most conversations I overheard at the party …

… I can tell you though that the concept is very new. Here’s a quote from their (public) blog for those who weren’t there:

Play it forward with us
Playing with others is so much more fun than playing by yourself. The social nature of play and the connectivity of the Internet creates a new platform for social fun. By combining the power of play and the social nature of communities, we dream of new types of play that can both enlighten and uplift players to view the world in novel ways.

Akoha is scheduled to launch worldwide and publicly next month. Until then, it’s playtested by the Montreal Tech community :-) and Akoha’s friends, with access only to those who went to the private event.

All in all, a great start for the Akoha team; congrats to every one of them for reaching this milestone.

PS: if you have any picture of the event, leave a comment; i’d love to include a few of them

Encan Bougon is a new service by Denis Canuel, that allows you to find items whose auction price is below $1 on eBay.

You can find for instance new smartphones for less than 0.02$, Dell desktops for 0.99$, lots of great books around 0.0.7$ and 0.7$. I am not sure if you can really get owners to send you blackberry handsets or antiques for less than $1.00; but eBay mechanics will penalize them if they don’t, so you might have a chance.

Denis Canuel wrote in his blog that it’s a personal tool he wrote to keep an eye on Ebay auctions; and has now decided to open the service for public use.

Why? Well the reason behind all this is that many auctions go unsold because they have typos and thus are not found by people. A lot of sellers are pretty bad at making their item “marketable” and have very bad title. And we humans are bad buyers. Most people only browse title, they don’t actually open the item to read the whole description. So a market of bad sellers and bad buys creates an opportunity for good buyers!

Encan Bougon was released a week ago, but the french version has been so popular that Denis also launched the English version, DailyDollarDeal. I, for one, love the concept. It’s simple, straightforward, and is actually very useful. Congrats for the launch & success!

Videopresse (by Christian Aubry) did an interview this wednesday of Richard Langevin, during the public protest at Société des Arts Technologiques. He explains that by cutting in subventions, Ottawa is threatening programs, exhibitions, events, and also the support that the SAT is giving to digital artists. They also do research & development about digital identity & new media, whose future is now uncertain if funding is stopped.

For MTW readers, many technology gatherings were organized at the SAT, such as democamps, barcamps, video game camps, pecha kuchas, rococo camp, and also startupcamps, making it the de-facto place for local *camps. They’ve got one the best infrastructure for multimedia presentations, but most importantly, were keen to support the nascent technology community, even if the concept was a bit crazy at its beginnings.

I would hate for instance if the SAT would have to change policy, (such as charging full market price for *camps or start to issue “guidelines” on events, straight from “guidelines” from the government). Its free/loose nature makes it a great place for entrepreneurs/geeks/designers to meet. I know for instance that the Standoutjobs team started there. Lots of other technology projects started there too. Just because of this, SAT deserves our support. If you can do something, please then do so.

Thanks to everyone who came yesterday at Montreal StartupDrinks. Delighted to meet everyone; as always a nice diversity of people *, and most of all great to hear about new technology projects. As Jevon MacDonald at StartupNorth says, it’s the time of the year for you to decide to start your project, set new goals ambitious goals, and aim for the stars. For those who are still looking, I hear that there’s a long weekend coming, so that’s your last chance shape up things; and decide to build something :-)

For those who are already running their ventures, I wish them success.

A few pictures taken during the event here.

* Hope also that everyone enjoyed meeting the top models.

The third edition of StartupCampMontreal has been announced for 27th November, as always brought to you by the enthusiastic team from Embrase.

The recipe is the same as the previous ones: get 5 startups to present each their business to a crowd of 300+ of entrepreneurs, executives as well as consultants and investors. A group of “startup experts” also get to ask questions to the team of entrepreneurs presenting. There’s a definitive focus here on business & business models, with entrepreneurs telling me that it gets them prepared to pitch VCs and present in conferences. I also know that a couple of presenting companies got ulterior funding, so it’s definitively an opportunity for entrepreneurs.

Announced keynote speakers are Patrick Lor, who ran previously iStockPhoto.com, and Austin Hill, who is going to present his startup Akoha. A new feature for this event is also a moderated panel composed of successfully funded startups, an idea put forward by Ben Yoskovitz.

You can get tickets at eventbrite, and if you have a business to present, you can edit the wiki directly.

FACIL, une association qui prône l’Informatique Libre, a annoncé aujourd’hui le dépôt une requête en cours supérieure du Québec visant le gouvernement provincial, et ses pratiques d’approvisionnement en logiciel. La requête vise tout spécialement une clause qui permet à ses services d’acquérir directement un logiciel quand il n’y a pas d’alternatives; clause apparement utilisée abondamment et abusivement quand il s’agit de se fournir et de renouveler les systèmes d’exploitation. 

L’affaire est la suite du procès intenté par SavoirFaireLinux contre la Régie des Rentes du Québec l’hiver dernier, qui avait fait un appel d’offres “Windows Vista” pour remplacer son parc Windows 2000. SavoirFaireLinux s’était alors plaint du fait que l’option de l’informatique libre (Linux) n’a pas été même considéré, alors que la loi exige des services gouvernementaux de lancer un appel d’offres. 

Il semble (à vérifier dans les jours qui suivent) que la requête de SavoirFaireLinux a été rejetée et c’est pourquoi FACIL revient à la charge, avec une requête qui s’applique au gouvernement provincial tout entier.

Je comprends l’exaspération chez FACIL et SavoirFaireLinux, quand on voit des ministères entiers en Europe basculer sous Linux. Mais je sais que l’option Linux Desktop n’est pas une solution facile. C’est un choix évident quand on est une startup ou une compagnie technologique, ca peut être aussi un choix économique de la part de chefs d’entreprise quand on est une PME; mais c’est surtout un choix hasardeux pour un ministère, pour des décideurs conservateurs, qui visent avant tout la stabilité et le status quo. 

En tout cas, bravo à FACIL. La question devait être posée, et j’espère qu’il y aura un débat la-dessus. Et on espère aussi que des sociétés comme Canonical lance un jour une version “Government” de leur distribution, option qui pourra rassurer bien de directeurs TI frileux. Avant que Windows 7 (2010? 2011?) ne sorte.

Pour suivre le déroulement de l’affaire, Robin Millette tient une page mise à jour.

iWeb Inc. announced yesterday a whopping $22 million funding by Goldman Sachs, a leading New York investment bank. The funding is mostly debt, with also $3 million provided in shares.

The funding is said to fuel growth for its data centers, add infrastructure for their dedicated servers offers. iWeb announced a new & third data center at Ile-Des-Soeurs six months ago, but I know that the data center is already filling up fast in capacity, and they might already be considering new infrastructure.

It’s the fist time that Goldman Sachs funds a quebec-based company. One of its competitors, Morgan Stanley, also announced a few months ago opening operations in Montreal.

Congrats to iWeb and its founders, Eric Chouinard and Martin Leclair!

Summer has nearly gone by, with its hot (and rainy) days, holiday trips, and bbqs. For most of us, it also means going back to work and get back to the normal busy schedule (unless you work for a startup, in which case you didn’t even know you were supposed to take a break). We want to gather everyone though, one last time, for the August StartupDrinks.

As usual, it’s at Café des Éclusiers, 400 rue de la Commune Ouest, from 6pm. The Café has an unbelievable terrace with a great panoramic view, all perfect for the last summer meetup.

We welcome everyone interested in talking about new technologies; come take a drink with us if you are interested in launching or participating in new technology projects. If you’re a software programmer, a web developer, an investor, a technology consultant, a geek, a blogger, you’re warmly invited! If you’re a hacker at heart, it’s also the right event.

Here are pictures from the last StartupDrinks (a short write-up here)

I didn’t count how many people went last time, but it was easily 40+ people; and I hope we go beyond that this Wednesday.

Quebec-Tech had a story this week about Île sans fil‘s problems within the Ville de Montréal administration. The non-profit organization, which had earlier this year a plan to blanket the city with free wifi coverage, is discovering endless layers of authorizations, officials and representatives, even though the initial plan was requested by the Ville de Montréal itself.

Daniel Drouet (yeah the same who does this), president of Ile sans fil, is asking the Montréalers who can to weigh in, and get the administration’s act together.

If I have a criticism to make, it’s that the non-profit organized rejoiced and announced too early the deal, putting unnecessary pressure (and hope) on the organization. I have also something against subventions and grants, since it skews a project’s financial figures, making it more vulnerable whenever a politician decides to make a few savings. However, having wide-city wifi coverage for Montreal is something that I’m looking for. The Internet has gone beyond the state of private needs to become a basic and necessary economic infrastructure for a country, in the same way as roads, electricity or running water. As such, the city has the responsability to ensure that Montrealers get a modern, complete and efficient coverage; and also see what’s already being done in other leading cities, such as Paris, Seoul or Taipei. And if there’s one organization that can make it happen, it’s Île sans fil, which now serves 75.000 users, accessing the highest number of hotspots than any other Canadian city, and which also inspired many other organizations such as, ogWifi, ZAP Québec, ZAP Sherbrooke, Montérégie sans-fil, Centre du Québe sans-fil and Wireless Toronto. 

So if you know someone at Ville de Montreal, or know an elected representative, or if you can call directly the City, then make yourself heard. And I really hope the dramatic tone by the article’s author, saying that it would be a critical blow if the deal doesn’t go through, was just an overstatement and not an accurate illustration of the reality.

Update: Daniel Drouet has more details here

Ryma Technology solutions has closed a $7 million series B funding round, with iNovia Capital as lead investor, along with Novacap, another Montreal VC firm.

Ryma Tech provides product management software, allowing companies to manage a product’s lifecycle, and most importantly give product managers an edge, by anticipating market needs, and improving innovation within the entreprise. Their software is used by various media and software companies.

I wish I could told you more, but one, it seems to be a desktop software, and two, entreprise software is something I have yet to fully grasp. Nevertheless, congrats to Ryma, iNovia Capital and Novacap!