A new report, conducted by Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton (RCGT) Consulting for Industry Canada, concludes that 16 out of 46 audited companies breached terms and conditions of the Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC) funding program. The following is an edited excerpt of the report.

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Dale Kearns, CFO of Zi Corp., will resign from the company in August to become the CFO and COO of a Toronto Stock Exchange-traded software company based in Calgary that does not compete with Zi. Milos Djokovic, Zi’s president and CEO, thanked Kearns for his contributions over the last five years in a news release.

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Contract questions arise in BGM-CHUM discussion
On a July 12 conference call held to discuss the acquisition of Chum Ltd. by Bell Globemedia (BGM), at least one analyst raised the question of how the deal might affect Chum’s existing wireless partnerships.

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The chair of the Ottawa Wireless Cluster (OWC) Neil Knudsen says he wasn’t surprised by the results of a survey of the Ottawa wireless industry last month which showed wireless companies in the nation’s capital are more intent on building their customer base and expanding their sales and marketing teams than they are on pursuing venture capital or government funding.

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Fun is not a word one would automatically associate with Bell Mobility, the stalwart wireless service provider attached to Canada’s largest wireline carrier. But Bell Mobility’s marketing leaders are trying to change the company’s image with a summer program designed to raise the firm’s fun factor and increase interactions with customers.

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Bell Mobility, one of the country’s three national wireless operators, has once again switched leaders. The company announced July 5 that three-year BCE Inc. veteran Robert Odendaal had decided to leave the firm to pursue other interests. Odendaal was also president of Bell Distribution Inc. (BDI).

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Industry Canada has kicked off an aggressive satellite licensing process with the goal of awarding 29 licences in 16 orbital slots. Telesat Canada, Ciel Satellite Communications Inc., Bell ExpressVu and Eutelsat SA are just some of the companies that have already expressed interest in some of the available licences. Announced on July 11, the department hopes to award the licences in about nine months or sometime in the spring of 2007.

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