DECIMA’S NOTEBOOK

Toward an IT Labour Shortage? Good thing we practised doing more with lessSandra Lavoy is a regional vice-president at Robert Half Technology in Ottawa, a company that tracks IT hiring trends. Lavoy is also mother to a young man who, at one point in his high-school career, planned to enter the tech sector. But now that he’s about to embark on the post-secondary journey, he’s chosen sports medicine instead. According to Lavoy, her son simply couldn’t stomach studying a subject that offers few employment prospects. It’s a common impression: IT is an unstable career. It must be. Witness Ottawa, where countless former Nortel workers float in search of employment. All those dot-coms, gone. All those CLECs, dead. Sports medicine seems a prudent choice. But that impression isn’t necessarily correct. Judging from the results of a Robert Half survey in September, hiring plans are up. Nearly 18% of 270 respondents, CIOs all, said they would hire full-time IT staff in Q4 2005. That’s more than double last year’s rate. And network expertise is one of the sought-after skills. "A year ago, contracts started coming back," Lavoy said. Companies are struggling to implement technologies to meet new regulatory requirements regarding data retention, storage and transmission. "A lot of IT initiatives came from that." Still, her son’s not interested in an IT career, and he’s not alone. In September, the Globe and Mail quoted the Computing Research Association, saying enrolment in North American comp-sci programs was down 10% 2004-2005 compared to 2002-2003—and 2002-2003 was down 23% compared to the previous year. It seems the industry needs to convince youngsters to join the ranks. But that’s not the only challenge. According to a report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Canada also has a problem at the experienced end of the employment scale. This country takes people out of the workforce too soon, the OECD said. "Canada should do more to improve employment opportunities for older Canadians whose participation rates are still below the levels in several other OECD countries." The organization advocates Canada Pension Plan changes and income tax amendments. Tell that to the telecom service providers and vendors that have been so industriously pushing experienced employees out the door, often with negative effects on customer service. Fewer youngsters. Fewer wise ones. Are we headed for an IT labour shortage? Lavoy isn’t sure. On one hand, it’s not as if companies are turning their noses up at older workers. But as for the newbies, Lavoy’s son’s inkling is a disturbing indication. "If he’s thinking that way, how many other children are?" she said. Enrollment at Humber College in Toronto for tech education isn’t as high as it used to be, said Nancy Rodrigues, associate dean of the School of Media Studies and Information Technology. Humber’s leaders say it makes sense, this theory that increased hiring plans among CIOs, fewer students and fewer experienced workers could create a labour crunch.The upshot: in the future, it might become difficult for companies to find the talent they seek. Telus, Union Reach Settlement Twelve weeks after Telus Corp.’s unionized employees in Alberta and B.C. went on strike, it seems they’re going back to work. Last month the Burnaby-based service provider came to a collective agreement with the Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU), whose members have been striking since July over contract and benefit concerns. Workers are voting on the offer as we go to press. The new agreement covers a national bargaining unit of 14,000 employees. Deal details weren’t available at press time. It’s the culmination of five years of negotiations. Read: five years of arguments between Telus and the TWU as they tried to merge six collective agreements into one. Prior to the contract, the B.C. division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) announced its intention to stop purchasing telecom services from Telus because of the labour dispute. Now that Telus and the TWU have reached an agreement, CUPE isn’t changing its mind. "That would be impossible," said CUPE B.C. president Barry O’Neill. "We’re already in discussions with Bell about changing some of our services." The B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) cancelled its service contracts with Telus as a sign of solidarity with the carrier’s unionized workforce. According to spokeswoman Nancy Knickenbocker, the BCTF switched to Bell, but the group hasn’t ruled out going back to Telus. "That decision hasn’t been made," she said. Bad News for RIMInvestors dinged Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) in September when it announced its Q2 2006 numbers. The Waterloo, Ont.-based BlackBerry maker said revenue increased 58% year over year and 620,000 new customers joined the BlackBerry-toting crowd. Unimpressed, investment analysts said RIM faces stiff competition from Microsoft Corp., Nokia Corp. and Palm Inc. The analysts also said RIM should have attracted as many as 650,000 new subscribers. In other RIM news, in early October the U.S. Court of Appeals refused to hear the firm’s case regarding NTP Inc., a software provider that sued RIM for patent infringement. In 2003 a U.S. District Court awarded NTP US$53.7 million and an injunction that could prevent RIM from selling BlackBerries in the States. RIM argued that the court over-extended U.S. patent law jurisdiction, because the dispute concerns technology that includes RIM’s Canadian routing systems. NTP seems to expect the original deciding court to enforce the injunction. RIM, meanwhile, aims to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to look into matters. Lost Without CrackBerriesIs communication technology addictive? The question seems posed by a report of a Telemanagement reader. Once a year, the bigwigs of her organization (the name of which we’re withholding to protect the innocent) head to a retreat. This year, they went to a location so remote that mobile phone and data signals are scant. Most of the execs on the trip carry BlackBerries, and with so little wireless coverage, they couldn’t access their email messages. Twitches ensued. Rather than break the CrackBerry habit, they enlisted an underling to collect the handheld computers and cart them to the nearest town for message retrieval. Nortel Shake-UpNortel Networks named a new president and CEO, Mike Zafirovski, on October 17. Former CEO Bill Owens, appointed in 2004, resigned the same day. Nortel says the outgoing exec’s leadership helped stabilize the company, while the newcomer is charged with finding growth opportunities. On October 19 Zafirovski’s former employer, Motorola Inc., worried that he might let slip a few trade secrets, filed a lawsuit against him for taking the Nortel job. Nortel also has a new organizational structure. Announced in September, it’s the third structural shake-up in three years. In this case, the telecom equipment maker created two new product divisions: enterprise solutions/packet networks, and mobility/converged core networks. Each division has its own president, neither of whom is Malcolm Collins. Nortel promoted him to lead the enterprise networks division in 2002. His order was to give the carrier-heavy Nortel a stronger enterprise focus. Judging from Nortel’s bankbook, Collins succeeded: the Q2 2005 financials show a 26% improvement in enterprise equipment revenue compared to the same quarter, 2004. Nonetheless, when announcing the structural changes, Nortel added that Collins is leaving the firm. New Telecom ResourceTelemanagement co-founder Ian Angus is compiling an online collection of the work of an outstanding figure in digital-era telephony, Lee Goeller. At www.leegoeller.com, network pros will be able to peruse the work of this prolific author, whose articles and essays appeared regularly for many years in Telemanagement and Business Communications Review. Goeller has been writing since 1974, when he left RCA to become a consultant. "Lee’s writings constitute an invaluable resource," Angus writes on the website’s intro page. "Some specific references are out of date (does anyone remember the Danray PBX?) but the basic concepts and principles are remarkably timeless." SuperNet Takes OffAlberta’s SuperNet is up and running, according to Bell Canada. The carrier, which helped build the network, announced in September that many of the 4,200 schools and hospitals receiving this fast, fat data connection are using it for advanced services like video conferencing. Bell said it’s now turning its attention to developing applications to run on top of the infrastructure. Bell and its partner Axia NetMedia won the bid to build SuperNet in 2001 over Telus, which calls Alberta its local territory. Problems soon arose. Bell and Axia went to court over a dispute, and the undertaking’s ownership shifted as network operators swapped assets during construction. The province threatened to pull the trigger on a $100 million performance bond if Bell et al. didn’t get the endeavour done by late September. But all’s well that ends well: Bell and Axia buried the hatchet and the job got done on time. SaskTel Gets HospitalitySaskTel is taking full ownership of Hospitality Network Canada Inc. The Saskatchewan incumbent said it will pay Alan Simpson, Hospitality’s former president and CEO, $1.4 million for the final 6%. Headquartered in Regina with an operational office in Mississauga, Ont., Hospitality provides TV and phone service in hospitals and long-term care facilities. Rogers Buys Nortel HQRogers Communications Inc. is one busy company. Last month the service provider agreed to purchase Nortel Networks’ Brampton, Ont. campus, to accommodate a growing workforce. The location offers a million square feet of workspace on 63 acres of land. Nortel, meanwhile, plans to move to two Toronto locations. Rogers takes possession January 2006. Rogers also reported a 42.8% revenue increase and a 29.3% operating profit increase in Q3 2005, compared to the second quarter, according to an October statement. Revenue at Rogers Wireless grew nearly 50% year over year. Bell Opens Innovation CentreBell Canada and Terry Matthews’ Wesley Clover holding company have joined to form a new technology innovation centre in Ottawa. Its mandate: come up with novel broadband-based applications for small- and mid-sized businesses. Stationed in the Ottawa district of Kanata, the Bell Advanced Solutions Innovation Centre proposes to provide IP-based applications that speak to business verticals like health care, hospitality, retail and transportation."We have a long way to go to bring the Internet to life for our customers," said Karen Sheriff, Bell’s president, small and medium business. She said many of Bell’s SMB clients have had to be convinced to try high-speed Internet services. But even as the small-business sector boards the broadband bandwagon, quick Web access "hasn’t come close to hitting its stride" for SMBs, in part because "the applications have not been developed."In September Rogers closed its Group Telecom transaction , so Rogers now owns most of GT’s assets in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The assets have changed hands a few times. 360networks Corp. swallowed GT, but then sold GT’s regional networks on the East Coast to Bell Canada, which, in turn, promised to sell the networks to Sprint Canada. Rogers purchased Sprint, paid off Bell and the assets land in Rogers’ portfolio. New Internet Phone ServiceFCI Broadband joined the ranks of carriers offering IP voice in September. The Markham, Ont.-based firm unveiled its iTalk Digital Phone service, which offers Internet-based phone calls, and essentially transforms Canada into a local calling area. You don’t have to dial "1" to call Vancouver from Toronto, for instance. Prices for the service, available only in Ontario, start at $21.95 for residential customers and $31.95 for businesses. Allstream Boosts ContactAllstream has a new IP-based contact centre system for enterprises. The hosted service is based on Cisco Systems Inc.’s IP contact centre platform. It supports voice, email, online chat and fax communication, as well as ACD, CTI and IVR functions. It comes with administrative tools and reporting mechanisms to help contact centre managers keep track of operations. Allstream claims the system affords on-demand agent deployment and provides cost savings thanks to the IP backbone. Allstream’s announcement follows that of Telus Corp. regarding the latter company’s CallCentreAnywhere platform, a hosted IP system for contact centres. Sprint Sues VonageSprint Nextel Corp. is going after Vonage Holdings Corp. for patent infringement. The Reston, Virginia-based telco said in October it’s suing, claiming that Vonage uses patented technology related to voice over packet transmission, the underlying infrastructure of VoIP. Sprint said it seeks an injunction prohibiting Vonage from using the disputed technology. Sprint also wants an unspecified amount of money for damages. Vonage provides VoIP service in the U.S. and Canada. Watch Your MouthIf ever we had proof that most people don’t understand what the tech pros are on about, here it is. As we all know, the most savvy citizens on new social trends are taxi drivers, bartenders, and hairdressers. A survey of these three groupings in Britain found that almost 90% of respondents didn’t know what "podcast" means, and 70% didn’t understand the term "blogging." In fact, a survey panel thought blogging was the same as "dogging," which describes watching people have sex in parking lots and other semi-secluded places, according to a Reuters article. More people understood "happy slapping," which describes assaulting someone and capturing the act on a mobile phone video recorder. Blogging is short for "Web log," an increasingly popular method of disseminating info quickly online. Podcasting means publishing broadcasts in digital format for mobile music players like Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod. Telecom Hall of Fame Welcomes InducteesWhen Alexander Graham Bell and his financial backer Gardiner G. Hubbard tried to sell the patent for the telephone to the Telegraph Company, a predecessor to Western Union, the firm flatly rejected the device as an "idiotic" idea. "Furthermore, why would any person want to use this ungainly and impractical device when he can send a messenger to the telegraph office and have a clear written message sent to any large city in the United States?" reads the rejection report. "We view that Mr. G.G. Hubbard’s request for $100,000 of the sale of this patent is utterly unreasonable, since this device is inherently of no use." It just goes to show how difficult it can be for businesses to recognize the next big thing in technology-the killer app that could provide a competitive advantage or, as the phone did, disrupt the corporate landscape, change it forever. On October 17, Canada’s Telecommunications Hall of Fame (www.telecomhall.ca) feted the people behind communication’s transformation from a collection of tech oddities to a group of essential services and products. Created earlier this year to recognize leadership and contributions to the Canadian telecom industry over the past 160 years, the Hall enshrined the first inductees at a ceremony held during Telemanagement Live, a telecom conference. Here are the inductees:Inventors and InnovatorsAlexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephoneReginald Fessenden, pioneer in wireless communications Servants of the Public David Colville, architect of competition in Canadian telecom policyJohn Chapman, father of Canada’s satellite communications industry Icons of Business Terry Matthews, founder of Mitel and Newbridge Networks Charles Fleetford Sise, led Bell Canada from 1880 to 1915 Advocates and Academics Professor Hudson Janisch, pre-eminent teacher of telecom regulation and lawLis and Ian Angus, champions on behalf of business telecommunications users Special Recognition Award Canada’s telephone and switchboard operators

DECIMA’S NOTEBOOK

News | 10/26/2005 4:00 am EDT

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