The Stratford Institute
By Ross Chevalier, President and CTO Novell Canada Inc.
[This post originally appeared in the new ITAC Digital Business Blog, you can view our new blog here]
On May 14th, ITAC’s Digital Business Forum hosted Mr. Eugene Roman of Open Text at The Spoke Club to speak about The Stratford Institute.
In his fascinating conversation, Mr. Roman emphasized that the demands and opportunities in the digital realm provide a new model and set of methods for communication. The internet alone is growing by between three and four petabytes of content every month. When we go out and buy storage these days, we often think in terms of a terabyte drive and this seems like a lot of storage. A petabyte is 1,000 terabytes. Now imagine those drives in racks of four thousand units, with an additional rack every month. Rich Media and Social Networks come together to build Social Media, truly the next phase of our connected world.
Social Media combines disciplines from Computer Science such as security and compliance with web 2.0 technologies, put together in highly creative ways and marketed through completely new channels. We’ve left behind our dependencies on a specific desktop and now consume social media everywhere through a variety of device interfaces.
— Which brings us to the Stratford Institute. The founding partners include the City of Stratford, the University of Waterloo, Open Text Corporation, the Government of Ontario and soon the Government of Canada. By bringing together the technological leadership in the Waterloo area with the artistic excellence of Stratford, the Institute brings a new brings together creativity, business and technology. The Stratford Institute will provide education to build a skills base in digital media, with a faculty of 200 engaged with 2,000 students. The curriculum is multi-disciplinary and leverages a partnership investment of sixty million dollars.
The most incredible reality presents itself to us. As new applications are created and networks become even more agile, we see that well over 90% of digital media has yet to be invented.
If you can make the time and if there are any seats left, the Canada 3.0 Conference takes place June 8-9, 2009 in Stratford Ontario. It will be a great learning and visioning opportunity.
Click here to watch the webcast of the ITAC Digital Business Forum
Elasticity in the Cloud – Reuven Cohen and Enomaly Inc.
By: Jason Grosse, Communications Manager, ITAC
 Reuven Cohen, Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc. |
Enomaly's Elastic Computing Platform (ECP) is a programmable virtual cloud infrastructure for businesses looking to design, deploy and manage virtual applications in the cloud allowing for reduced administrative and systems workload. Reuven Cohen is Founder & Chief Technologist for Enomaly Inc. Reuven is a thought leader in the emerging cloud computing industry and maintains a blog at www.elasticvapor.com.
This issue of ITAC Online is focusing on digital business; do you
consider what Enomaly does digital business? Does it differ from a
traditional digital business?
When you talk about cloud computing, it's important to realize what cloud
computing is. It's a metaphor for the Internet. Previously, when you looked at IT, it was a client/server or it was a
desktop. More recently, applications have become much more web centric. They
are partially or wholly contained on the Internet. The digital business
aspect is in the transformation from the desktop centric 90s to the Internet
centric 21st century. That is what we’re trying to address here.
Enomaly offers what it refers to as ‘elastic computing’ through its Elastic
Computing Platform (ECP). How does this differ from traditional cloud
computing?
They are two basic aspects to cloud computing. On one side of the spectrum
there is an infrastructure environment and on the other side there is more of a platform focus. What we do is provide companies
the ability to create an elastic computing cloud and infrastructure as a service
in
an on-demand way.
What are some of the characteristics of the application?
First of all it's a self-service environment, meaning infrastructure is
provisioned in an automatic way without human intervention. It scales up and
it scales down automatically. Applications are tied directly to
infrastructure which is vital when sudden demands are placed on the network
— you can instantly have the application provision additional capacity.
The benefits of cloud computing are traditionally listed as: scalability
and reduced capital expenditures what are some of the lesser known benefits?
It’s the elasticity that cloud computing provides that is a big benefit.
It's cheaper to access 100 servers for an hour than it is to go by 100
servers. You are taking a capital expenditure and moving it to a variable cost,
which is a much better use of your money.
Your customers are global, what is the Canadian operating environment
like?
One of the limiting factors is the geopolitical aspects of computing. I
don't want to be in a position to have to outsource my infrastructure to the
U.S. because of laws and different compliancy issues — I may want to keep my
data within the boundaries of Canada, this is our advantage. We have recently
seen interest from a variety of hosting providers that are coming to us
specifically to build these cloud environments within the context of the
Canadian border — so it’s still about scalability but scalability within
Canada, and that's really important especially looking at things like the
Patriot Act.
This is an important issue, digital rights, where does Canada fall?
There's certainly an advantage here. We have pretty good laws in
terms of your rights and protection of information, whereas in
the States things like the Digital millennium Act and the Patriot Act leave
an unknown quotient. You never know if someone is monitoring your traffic,
someone could go in and take your servers, borrow your servers. There's no
real protection for a Canadian company in that context. The same applies in
other geographical locations — it’s important to define the compliancy and
governance of information and the opportunity. Right now in Canada, there
really aren't many of us in cloud computing but that's going to
change.
Cloud computing has been called the ultimate form of globalization, where
traditional borders become irrelevant, do you see this reflected in your
customers?
I would disagree with that. I think it (traditional borders) become very
relevant. What cloud computing does is allow you to determine those
characteristics. For instance, let’s use the example of a large website —
I'm hosting the traffic from all over the globe and say have a large spike
in China — it doesn't make any sense to host my resources in Toronto.
Reuven is also founder of several technology organizations: Enomaly.com - Elastic Computing Platform (Cloud Computing), Cloud Camp - Local Cloud Computing events, the Unified Cloud Interface Project - Semantic Cloud Abstraction API, Cloud Interoperability Forum - Cloud Standards Group. Reuven is on the Strategic Advisory Council for Sun MicroSystems, Seneca@York University, Microsoft Windows Azure Product Planning Program, IDG CloudWorld and the Canadian Youth Business Foundation.
Click here to launch the webcast.
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Ebay Canada: Conducting Business in a Digital World
By: Andrew Sloss, Country Manager eBay Canada, Country Kijiji Canada
 Andrew Sloss, Country Manager, eBay Canada, Country Manager, Kijiji Canada |
The Internet has the fastest rate of technology adoption in history and has transformed how people communicate and interact in their daily lives. The number of global Internet users has skyrocketed to over 1.3 billion. eBay is a technology platform which has broadly revolutionized digital commerce: in marketplaces, payments, communications, and classifieds.
eBay Inc. family includes a diverse number of market-leading online assets, including eBay, the World's Online Marketplace™, a global online trading platform where practically anyone can trade practically anything; PayPal, a safe and secure online payment solution provider; and Skype, the leader in online communications, allowing millions of people to communicate with others through free voice and video calls, as well as instant messaging. eBay is planning an initial public offering (IPO) for Skype in 2010. eBay’s stable of companies also includes many online marketplaces, such as StubHub (the world’s largest ticket marketplace) and Kijiji (a group of free, local, community classifieds websites), among others.
Founded in 1995, eBay created a powerful platform for the sale of goods and services by a passionate community of individuals and businesses. Initially, a platform for trading collectibles in the US only, eBay has since evolved and expanded internationally and now eBay enables trade in a number of different product categories on a local, national, and international basis with customized sites in 39 markets around the world. eBay now has more than 276 million registered users worldwide. At any given time, eBay hosts 126 million live listings worldwide. Over the course of one year, eBay hosts 2.7 billion live listings globally. Everyday, eBay posts 7 million new listings and facilitates more than 1 billion pages views, 298 million searches and 17 million bids. eBay users worldwide trade approximately $2,040 USD worth of goods on the site every second.
In Canada, of the over 24 million Internet users, one in four are currently registered on eBay. eBay is the top retail e-commerce site in Canada, visited by almost one out of every two Canadians online – 9.6 million Canadians in March 2009. Canadians spent over $1 billion USD on eBay in the last 12 months. More than 32,000 Canadian sellers use eBay as a primary or secondary source of income, and the vast majority who conduct business through eBay are micro, small or medium-sized enterprises that operate on razor-thin margins.
eBay is also bolstering the economies in smaller Canadian cities. A recent eBay survey revealed smaller communities, such as Belle River (ON), Sooke (BC), Kemptville (ON), Niagara-on-the-Lake (ON), Chelmsford (ON), Fort Nelson (BC), Tottenham (ON), Cornwall (PEI), Kingston (NS) and Ste-Marthe-Sur-Le-Lac (QC), form some of eBay’s top Canadian buying and selling communities.
Through an array of services, eBay is enabling global e-commerce for an ever-growing online community. Each year eBay invests millions of dollars in human and technical resources to improve the user experience and reduce the incidence of unlawful listings on our platform. Since launching our first anti-counterfeit measures in 1998, eBay has continued to develop and implement innovative solutions, such as eBay’s Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) program, to combat the sale of infringing goods. In 2008, eBay effected as many listing removals as all brand owners combined.
Tell us your thoughts on this story
ICT Leaders Confer with Prime Minister Harper and Minister Clement
Photo: Deb Ransom |
On May 13, the leaders of 15 of Canada’s ICT companies met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Industry Minister Tony Clement to discuss the importance of the ICT sector and the adoption of ICT tools to Canada’s economic recovery. The meeting was the first step toward a national ICT strategy for Canada. The next step will be an Industry Canada sponsored summit scheduled for June 22 in Ottawa. ITAC has drafted a white paper (see below) containing the industry’s recommendations for components in this strategy. For more information contact Linda Oliver loliver@itac.ca. |
Upping our Game: A National ICT Strategy Call For
Canada
ITAC has released a white paper outlining the information and communications
technology industry’s vision for a more competitive Canadian economy
predicated upon more widespread deployment of technology. “Upping our Game”
also details the key elements necessary for a sound national ICT strategy
for Canada. It also lists a number of metric-driven objectives and
recommendations to build this strategy.
Click
here to download the paper.
First Edition of the Tremblant Venture Foum: an
Inspirational Success
Montréal, Quebec, May 25, 2009 – The first edition of the Tremblant Venture
Forum, held on May 13 and 14, 2009 at the Fairmont Tremblant Hotel, was
highly successful. Eastern Canada’s premier company financing event provided
a forum for leading North American venture capitalists representing a total
of over C$10 billion, including BDC Venture Capital, Desjardins Venture
Capital, Solidarity Fund QFL, Arcapita Ventures, Internet Capital Group,
Entrepia Ventures, Emerald Technology Ventures, J.L. Allbright Ventures and
BlackBerry Partners Fund, to assess investment opportunities in the most
promising Canadian early-stage innovative technology companies.
[more]
Canadian Payments Association Appoints ITAC Member
to Stakeholder Advisory Council
In accordance with the Canadian Payments Act, the Board of Directoers of the
Canadian Payments Association (CPA), in consultation with the Minister of
Finanace, has appointed Jim Robbins, President, EWA Canada to the
Stakeholder Advisory Council. Jim will represent ITAC on the council for a
three-year term.
IBM and Chipworks Exchange Views on Advanced
Packaging
Dave Danovitch (senior engineer at IBM’s Bromont facility) reprised his presentation on advanced packaging solutions at the spring Strategic Microelectronics Council’s Best Practice Forum in Ottawa on May 12. Sinjin Dixon-Warren, Manager process analysis at Chipworks, provided a user perspective on solutions like flip-chip packaging and system-on-a-chip. The session was hosted by Synopsys.
ITAC Annual
Chairs’ Dinner
June 23, 2009
Tom Turchet, Vice-President, Software, General Business IBM Corporation and
ITAC’s incoming Chair cordially invites you to attend the ITAC Annual
Chairs’ Dinner.The evening will be an opportunity to celebrate and honour
the accomplishments of Mr. Robert Courteau, ITAC’s Chair from 2008-2009;
ITAC’s IT Hero Award winners; and ITAC’s member community and volunteers. Ed
Lange, Chief Customer Officer of SAP America, will be the evening’s guest
speaker. For more information,
click here.
ITAC Health Presents: The Canada Health Infoway Strategy Breakfast Event
June 24, 2009
08:00AM – 10:30AM
The Old Mill Inn, Bruce A/B Room, 21 Old Mill Road, Toronto
In the 2009 Federal Budget Canada Health Infoway was allocated $500 million
to “speed up the implementation of electronic medical record systems for
physicians and integrated points of service for hospitals, pharmacies,
community care facilities and patients.” Infoway is responding to this new
opportunity in a number of ways including investments to increase the number
of physicians utilizing EMRs, as well as supporting vendors to upgrade their
solutions, utilizing pan-Canadian standards, so they are interoperable with
provincial EHR infrastructures . Trevor Hodge, Infoway’s Senior Vice
President of Investment Strategies and Alliances will provide an overview of
the strategies driving these investments, including the opportunities for
solution providers to become immediately involved. For more information,
click here.
Canada 3.0 Forum Stratford Institute
June 8-9, 2009
At Canada 3.0, you will enter the discussion at the ground floor and
establish relationships with other visionaries, strategists, and
entrepreneurs from the private sector, all levels of government, and
universities and colleges.
You’ll be part of the group that identifies the required skills, programs
and resources to develop Canada’s workforce and infrastructure.
This is your chance to influence policies and effect change. For more
information, click here.
For a complete listing of all ITAC events go to: http://www.itac.ca/index.php/site/events/
CIRA Now Accepting Nominations and Applications for Board of Directors
By serving on the CIRA Board of Directors, you will define the strategic
direction of CIRA and contribute to Canadian Internet policy by setting the
policies that support Canada's Internet community and users. Your voice will
help shape the future of the Internet in Canada. To apply,
click here.
Telus Presents: Unified Communications - Building the Business Case
June 2, 2009
08:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Toronto Board of Trade, Toronto, ON
Join TELUS, our strategic partners and guest Forrester Research, as we
demonstrate how Unified Communications can address many of the business
challenges organizations face today. We’ll help you understand the benefits
of a Unified Communications strategy and show you how to achieve
cost-savings, and increase the effectiveness of the communications of your
employees. You’ll clearly understand why 86% of IT decision makers now
believe they can make a business case for migrating to Unified
Communications. To register,
click here.
OCCTO Technology Town Hall: Paperless Government?
June 5, June 5, 2009-05-29
09:00 AM – 01:00 PM
Ontario Room
900 Bay Street, Macdonald Block
Decades after the initial promise of a “paperless society” and following
generations of imaging and storage technology, are we finally ready to get
rid of paper? Since the start of the “computer age” we have been creating
more documents and are using more paper than ever before, resulting in
significantly increased costs for both storage and document management, not
to mention the negative effect this has on green strategies. This session
will explore the driving forces for a “Paperless Government”, the legal and
practical implications of going digital and some of the emerging
technologies in digital imaging and document management. To register,
click here.
Tandberg Presents: “Experience a New Way of Working”
June 11, 2009-05-2
04:00 PM – 07:00 PM
TANDBERG - Executive Briefing Center,2225 Sheppard Ave E
Suite 1402, Atria III
Toronto, Ontario
TANDBERG invites you to an exciting event where we will unveil our new
product line of telepresence and video conferencing solutions. Join us at
our Executive Briefing Center for food, fun, live music and of course,
cutting-edge technology. To register,
click here.
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