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.

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 

Last month Ubisoft revealed that their upcoming Montreal-developed Nintendo DS title My Health Coach: Weight Management would ship with a pedometer peripheral that tracks a user’s steps and distance travelled. This pedometer can be carried around during the day, and uploads stats and progress to the application when attached to the DS. What differentiates this title from the multitude of other non-games for the DS, and even WiiFit, is the mobility of the peripheral and potential applications for use outside of weight management.

On the very same day Ubisoft announced My Health Coach, noted Alternate Reality Game designer Jane McGonigal gave a talk at SXSW on and happiness and why and how we should be making real life more like video games. Her full keynote can be read here. With Ubisoft’s DS pedometer fresh on my mind, I couldn’t help but feel her ideal future where society uses games in their daily lives to kill boredom was closer than she thought. Near the end she talks about expensive GPS utilities tracking positions and mobile devices that communicate with Twitter and other web services, but here comes Ubisoft with an affordable peripheral for the most popular mobile device on the planet. I’m sure a designer like Jane McGonigal could come up with dozens of bredom-killing game ideas that take advantage of this pedometer. And how long can it be until the DS officially supports GPS tracking too? It’s refreshing to see that Ubisoft Montreal isn’t a studio just limited to creating big budget blockbusters, and is actually at the forefront of challenging our concept of what constitutes games and where they can be played.

English version in the 2nd part of the post

Dans un effort de rendre montrealtechwatch pertinent et utile à la communauté technologique montréalaise, il vous est maintenant possible de publier vos propres textes dans le blogue en allant à l’adresse http://montrealtechwatch.com/nouvelles . Le texte soumis sera alors republié tel quel.

Cette initiative a pour but de donner un voix aux entrepreneurs qui commencent, de rendre visibles des projets qui sont restés jusqu’à présent “secrets”, ou peut-être si vous pensez qu’un produit ou un projet n’a pas été suffisament couverts ou de manière incorrecte.

Bien sûr pour éviter tout abus, ces nouvelles ne seront pas publiés immédiatement; de plus, il y a une limite d’une publication par mois, par projet, comme les offres d’emplois. Il n’est pas possible non plus de soumettre une nouvelle si vous n’êtes pas directement impliqué(e) (genre si vous êtes representant en relations publiques)

—-

In efforts to keep MTW relevant and useful, it is now possible to publish your own news in the blog by going at the address http://montrealtechwatch.com/news The body of the text will then be published, with a blockquote.

This initiative is meant to give a voice to new entrepreneurs, to get visibility for projects which are currently in stealth mode (or whatever you call it), or if you feel that a project or a startup has not been covered enough or in an unfair way.

Of course, to prevent abuse, these will not be published immediately; expect a delay of 24 hours; furthermore, there will be a limit of 1 published news per month, per project, in the same style as the job listings. Also, it isn’t possible  to submit something if you are not directly involved with the project (meaning: PR pictches, press releases will not be published)

This is, as always, an alpha feature. Hope you will find great use for it.

Looking back at the archives here on Montreal Tech Watch, there were days where I wrote 4 or 5 articles per day. Things have changed, as right now, I find myself busy with other projects and other personal adventures :-)

This is not to say tough there isn’t anything happenning in Montréal as I am still heavily involved in Blitzweekend and other local Rails projects, it’s just that I am focusing on my own projects for now. This should change in the next few weeks though, so your best bet is to keep the RSS feed.

Until then, happy holidays for everyone!

:-)

Things have been speeding up here in Montréal lately; although I had plans to renew MontrealTechWatch in early 2008, I am advancing them for now:

• The biggest change you will see is that there will be from now on posts in french. The choice of the language will be depending on the topic. For instance, Defensio which is obviously targeting the english market, will be covered in English. However, if there are news about Bell offering a new product here in Montréal for example, this will be done in French. This change is driven mainly by the fact that Montréal is a bilingual city and that there are also many working in technology who only use French. Now, I will be exploring if it’s possible to make separate feeds for english / french content. Stay tuned for updates,
• Topics will also be broadened. The Internet is great, but I believe there is a huge area of growth in electronics, telecommunications, mobile technology (think OLPC, Blackberries, iPhone, openmoko, new displays etc.). There is also one thing that I would like to be covered here, which is web design in Montréal and in Québec. This is however something I don’t have full reach; if you work in web design, and if you are interested in writing posts, in english or in french, at Montreal Tech Watch, feel free to shout an email at news@montrealtechwatch.com,
• Events will now be covered live, on twitter, and there won’t be any reports from now on in Montreal Tech Watch, unless it’s to post pictures about the event, or write some final thoughts about the event’s organization. This is done mainly to save time, and I also believe this is where we are heading towards to in blogging. Also, writing reports about a meetup three or four days after an event doesn’t make it anymore,
• Finally, there is now a facebook group for Montréal Tech Watch. Join it to post links and videos, discuss entrepreneurship and news, know more Montréalers working in technology. My initial objective was to build some sort of crunchbase and “social networking” behind Montreal Tech Watch, but facebook just makes this sort of things easy

Those are not big announcements, more in the way how content will be organized and produced, by using the right tool and medium for the right content.

ADISQ’s initial announcement on Internet regulation was vastly picked up last week by bloggers and the media. A facebook group, Against CRTC regulating the Internet, was created by Pierre Coté, with now 192 members. Sylvain Carle wrote an open letter to ADISQ, where he shows that the business model has changed for the music industry and that producers should focus instead on their core skills, which is finding, supporting and promoting talents. Michel Leblanc wrote that the market has changed, and that the industry should instead find new ways instead to sell music on the Internet.Michel Dumais gathered the posts, quotes and invited other bloggers to write about the situation.

Bruno Guglielminetti, journalist at Radio-Canada, reports that he tried to have an interview with Michel Arpin, VP of CRTC, but it seems he doesn’t speak to the press anymore. Instead, he found out a recent speech by CRTC’s head, Konrad Von Finckenstein. Here are some quotes:

With respect to content, we have chosen to focus on the streaming of commercial television over the Internet and wireless devices. We are concerned with professional programming only, not with the material generated by users.

With respect to issues of access, we will focus on such items as:

• Internet traffic prioritization, and
• the definition of what telecommunications basic service shall be.

…

In short, we have to learn what New Media entails, we need to assess the impact of New Media on broadcasting and telecommunications, and most importantly from our point of view, we need to assess their impact on the regulatory system. Will New Media undermine or bypass it, or be merely complementary?

These are all very big questions. We have to address them soon. I don’t know what the answers are.

But there is one thing I do know. For us at the CRTC, the guiding principle in our approach to New Media will be exactly the same one that we have followed in our approach to the traditional media: To regulate as effectively as we can to further the two primary goals of the Broadcasting Act –Canadian content and full access to the system for all Canadians.

I am especially shocked with the mention of “Internet traffic prioritization”, as I thought Net Neutrality was just a pure U.S. matter, but it seems the CRTC has their eye on favouring internet traffic from sources they think is appropriate.

Second, he apparently likes to think that CRTC’s regulatory system is automatically applied on new media. M.Konrad Von Finckenstein, all I have to say is that if one day you think of enforcing internet regulation, Iwe will undermine and bypass it.

The fact that he uses the word “broadcasting” when speaking about the Internet is revealing for me. Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and TV to a passive audience, by a few officially approved channels. Internet is not broadcasting. Compared to radio or TV, the Internet is a revolution on how we handle, manage and produce information. It’s an opportunity for anyone to freely create, write, podcast, produce their own videos … or become an entrepreneur.

I really hate when legacy institutions try anything to get back the power and control they used to have.

Jerome Plantevin from Les Affaires reports that Ms. Lyne Bouchard, CEO of TechnoMontreal, has resigned from her post. 

TechnoMontreal launched publicly earlier this year,  announcing very ambitious goals, and challenging technology companies to work together and promote the image of Montréal as a technology center. They received for that $1.8m subsidies from Montréal International and from other various governmental agencies.

Jerome Plantevin calls TechnoMontréal a fiasco; Ms. Lyne Bouchard led and controlled everything at TechnoMontreal, her resignation sends a negative message for the local technology industry, and might also mean that the organization would fall apart.

The canadian edition of PC World has a very interesting article about Nortel Networks and its story. According to the article, Nortel transformed Ottawa into the nation’s tech capital.

More than 60 high tech manufacturers and telecom service providers can trace their roots to Nortel, according to a 1999 report on the country’s capital region, and the high tech industry that fuels Ottawa’s growth.

Today, Nortel’s digital equipment is the beating heart of almost every single one of the top 25 service provider networks in the world. Statistics Canada says the company accounts for more than 15% of all private sector R&D and 85% of telecom R&D in Canada.

“Le CRTC pourrait réguler l’Internet” is cyberpresse’s headline today. Michel Arpin, VP of CRTC, said that they didn’t see the need to regulate the Internet in 1999, but it’s different now. He added:

On s’aligne donc pour intervenir, et ce avant trois ans.

This is after the ADISQ, the APFTQ, and the ACTRA made a public appeal last sunday to the Quebec and Canadian government. I am not sure if Michel Arpin said that to calm down these associations, which represent the music and cinema industry, or if the CRTC was really serious about it.

In case you didn’t get it, there is only one way of regulating the Internet and making sure that there is a majority of Canadian content on the Internet; and that is by blocking foreign websites, which is what Saudi Arabia and China is doing. And there is one thing for sure, this will impoverish instead of enriching Québec and Canadian culture.

Instead, I suggest that the José Verner pays a course on digital matters 101 to the ADISQ and everyone involved in this matter. It will show them that, because of its technical nature, there can’t be any artificial barrier on the Internet. The RIAA and the MPAA have been laughed at for years because they too don’t understand the organic nature of the Internet; instead of helping the artists and their members to adapt and cross the digital divide, they invested their efforts into controlling each user.

Wake up, ADISQ, you are disconnected from today’s reality!!!