The last of Nortel’s legacy sold off

Nortel’s patents sold for 4.5 billion dollars–a true indictment of the many dollars and years of R&D investment.  Some of Canada’s top scientists worked there–it truly was an innovative company (unfortunately with bad management).

It is also very sad that Nortel’s leadership, including Mike Zafirovski, did not know the true value of what they had in the company.  Also sad is the fact that our governments (federal and provincial) didn’t realize the value of this innovation to our country.  I still believe that investment into high-tech is more forward looking than investment in the automobile industry, and expecially construction.  Highly skilled knowledge workers are great for the future of the country.  Here is an article that I think sums up the loss pretty well: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1016391–family-jewels-frittered-away

Hoepfully this is a lesson that can be learned.  RIM is a true Canadian tech anchor–let’s hope we take to heart some of lessons from the down fall of Nortel.  I’m not talking a future bailout, but some manner of protecting the intellectual capital (patents, workers, skills) that is being developed at RIM.

Here’s hoping.

The Importance of a Technology “Anchor”

Not a long post from me today, but just a link to an article in the Globe and Mail that explains what RIM’s misfortunes could mean for the city of Kitchener-Waterloo.  I doubt that they will become the next Nortel, but hopefully they won’t.

Ottawa Tech Sector / RIM

A while ago I was going to post a quick something that I saw about the Ottawa Tech Sector from the Ottawa Citizen, but didn’t post it.  Unfortunately things didn’t seem to be going well in Ottawa high-tech despite some encouraging signs from some companies.  Article below:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/thinning+ranks+Ottawa+tech+sector/4564755/story.html?cid=megadrop_story

But now it seems we could have some more bad news for Ottawa (really Canada) tech with RIM’s recent announcements.  This will affect the growing tech economy of Waterloo much more than Ottawa’s but there will be an effect.  RIM is one of the local bright spots. 

Who is going to be Canada’s tech anchor?  It looks like RIM is still a major force and will remain the number one tech company in Canada for awhile.  But who will be Ottawa’s anchor?  Since the demise of Nortel we don’t seem to have a large, world-class, exporter of technology (apologies to all the smaller Ottawa companies out there).  Maybe an anchor is not required beyond the government and it’s tech contracts, but I think a big world-beater would be good to have in town.

Motorola’s come-back

Just reading the EE Times article talking about Motorola’s resurgence.  It’s good to see the inventor of the cell phone to be back in the business. 

The Android operating system really is helping Motorola come back.  Will this be Apple’s undoing?  Doubtful–but gives the competition some breathing room.

Management Rewired

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I am somewhat loyal listener to Chris Gondak’s podcast—The Invisible Hand.  It’s a podcast that reviews new business and economics books by interviewing the author.  Recently I received an Amazon gift certificate and purchased some of the books I’ve heard about from the podcast.  Included in that list is “Management Rewired” by Charles Jacobs. 

I have long been fascinated with how our brains work, and this book takes a good look at the functioning of the brain.  It also attempts to provide some practical advice on how to manage people with consideration of how everyone perceives the world. 

I find the book and the research fascinating but there is something I wonder about.  Charles Jacobs has been in the business of management consulting for a long time.  He started out with his practices long before the brain research that he quoted was in.  Did he jump all over these theories when he found out about them because they confirmed his thinking all along?  Is there a chance he could be manipulating the findings to support his own theories?

Good questions but they should not completely stop people from reading the theories presented in this book.  The human brain is very interesting indeed.

What’s going on at the iPad factory?

Just a quick post on this one.  Read the story on EE Times, and looked a little further into it.  This can’t be coincidence with the upcoming delivery of the iPad.   Should Apple (and others) reconsider using Foxconn?

iPad is coming! How about paper reduction?

Coming soon to stores on April 3rd, the iPad is causing quite a stir.  Will it be “all that”?

The most interesting part about the iPad, the Kindle, and other tablet PCs and e-readers (and yes I know e-readers and tablet computers are really different things!) is what it might actually do to the print (newspapers and books) industry.  It seems logical to me  (someone who reads quite a bit online, but not much printed material) that we may finally see less trees being converted to paper.  I bold the “may” because people have predicted the paperless office in the past.

It will be hard to fully get rid of paper, but the e-reader/tablet idea might reduce some paper usage.  We shall see how this all progresses in the next few years.

Go east young man (or woman)

I know this is happening in the technology industry, so I am not surprised that recent business school graduates are seeking adventure and fortune in Asia.  I can definitely see the attraction that unattached people might have.  Speaking as someone who did work overseas for two years, there is no guarantee of success, it could be a wild ride, but overall a great learning experience.  Businessweek article here.

Positive signs

I look through some of my posts and realize that I have a slightly negative tone to the blog.  Well, today I will pass on some positive news–at least it’s positive for the industry I work in.  The good ‘ole supply and demand economics is working, with semiconductor companies not going overboard building fabs so that the supply side of the equation will not get out of whack.  Here is the story from Mark LaPedus of EE Times.

Craig Barrett on regional innovation

Was just reading an article on The Next Silicon Valley website that details some of the talks that Craig Barrett (formerly of Intel) was giving in Ireland.   He has some strong opinions on how a real technology sector can grow.  I think he has a lot of good things to say, with the biggest being that Foreign Direct Investment is probably not the best way to grow a regional technology hub.  Growing from within is longer, but really the only way for a sustainable technology park.  Worth a read.