Peter Wilson
Sun

Work and play will blend more and more for British Columbians in 2006 as lighter, faster wireless notebook computers — complete with surround sound, enhanced graphics and high-definition TV — make their way into the hands of workers and consumers, Intel Canada predicts.

These mobile devices, which will increasingly replace desktop PCs, will allow business users to combine workday activities and pleasure and also permit more people to work from home.

Among the business beneficiaries of this trend will the province’s large wireless industry, said Intel Canada head Doug Cooper, who Wednesday released his top five trends to watch for 2006.

“We’re very bullish on wireless and mobility and you have a lot of wireless communications companies,” Cooper said in an interview. “And there will be a tremendous opportunity for businesses overall because consumers are clearly building an emotional attachment to their wireless and portable devices.”

One of the companies that Cooper said would see a boost from the increasing move from desktops to laptops is FatPort, the Vancouver-based firm that has some 300 wireless hotspots across Canada with an average of 200 new customers signing on each day. He expects to have 500 hotspots by the end of the year.

FatPort co-founder Michael Kuhlmann said that despite predictions the use of wireless hotspots would decline, his business is flourishing with 80 to 90 per cent of it now coming from business, largely because wireless access is still expensive for individuals.

“I think that people have become comfortable with the technology, and there’s just so much more of it out there that it’s a lot more acceptable to the user and I think its that combination that makes it successful,” Kuhlmann said.

Cooper said that the move towards the intermingling of work and play will be seen initially among small businesses where users tend to buy their technology for both work and home.

He added that larger businesses will likely begin to allow more of their employees to work at home.

“One of the reasons is rising energy costs,” Cooper said. “It’s expensive having employees drive in to work every day. And [the employees] spend a large part of their day in conference calls, so why tie that to the office?

“And you can get high-speed connections and stay in contact both over the phone and through e-mail as easily as you can from work. The decreasing costs of high-speed connections are making it more economic to have people work at home.”

And, Cooper said, the combination of work and play is increasingly seen with university students, like those at the University of British Columbia with a completely wireless campus.

Kuhlmann said that he can foresee more non-business users signing on at FatPort.

“We recently signed a deal with Nintendo that will see Nintendo DS users, which is their portable gaming platform, to use our hotspots,” said Kuhlmann. “And so you could be at one of our hotspots in Edmonton and I could play you here. That shifts the user base from business users to kids and teenagers.”

INTEL CANADA’S TOP 5 2006 TECH TRENDS:1. You can take it with you: A new generation of thin and light notebook PCs with dual-core processors will allow users to blend work and play in new and exciting ways and allow people to have more flexible working hours.2. Small business, big approach: Companies in the information and communication technology sector will help British Columbia’s small and medium businesses to see the advantages of using technology like the Web to put them on more equal footing with larger companies.3. Need for speed: PCs will not only get faster in 2006, they’ll get smaller and quieter and the distinction between desktop and notebooks will blur with sleek new designs that allow them not only to use for work but for digital content at home.4: Up, up, up for downloading: With hundreds of hours of digital material poised to become available online, people will increasingly turn to PCs to download, store, view, buy, manage and share their favourite music, movies and photos.5: Computer downtime fades away: Starting this year a number of PCs will ship with active management technology that will allow technicians to repair them remotely, even if they’re turned off or the hard drive is damaged. This will reduce maintenance costs by 30 per cent and reduce desk-side visits by 41.5 per cent.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Sun

Google Inc. and CanWest Global Communications Corp. subsidiary Canada.com announced Monday they were teaming up on an Internet search and advertising partnership.

The multi-year partnership will provide Canada.com users with content and search related advertising, while offering Google’s advertisers access to Canada.com’s extensive reach across the country, the companies said.

“With almost three million unique visitors a month, Canada.com provides an excellent media vehicle for our advertisers who are looking to penetrate the Canadian marketplace,” stated Wendy Muller, head of Canada ad sales and operations for Google.

“This alliance will broaden our reach into this important market, and maintain Google’s ongoing strategy of partnering with market leaders.”

The companies didn’t release financial details of the transaction, but said ad revenue generated from the partnership will be shared.

“Our goal is to partner with tier-one companies to deliver the most innovative and effective offerings for both consumers and advertisers,” said Arturo Duran, president of interactive and business integration for CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.

“Partnering with the world’s best known search engine underscores this commitment, helping us to both grow our revenue base and maintain our position as Canada’s leading online destination for news and information.”

Canada.com has a network of sites which includes driving.ca, remembering.ca and working.com. It has almost three million visitors to its sites a month.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Canadian launch date and price yet to be confirmed

MARC SALTZMAN
Sun

Gadgets
   One product that had much of the show floor buzzing at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was the Pioneer Inno, the first pocket-sized gadget that combines a digital music player with live satellite radio playback and recording. So, not only can you carry all your favourite songs and downloaded audio books, but if you’re listening to a XM Satellite Radio channel you can press a button to “pause” the live broadcast to playback at a later time. The 4.5-ounce Inno can store up to 50 hours of this timeshifted content. What’s more, you can bookmark songs while listening to XM Radio; when synchronized with your PC it will launch Napster, call up the tagged songs and ask if you want to download CDquality versions. While the Canadian launch date and price is yet to be confirmed, the unit will debut stateside for $399 US by April.
   Games
   When Bethesda Softworks’ anticipated The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (www.theelderscrolls.com ) comes out this March for the Xbox 360 and PC, you best not be making any plans until, say, summertime. The latest in the decade-old role-playing game series lets you traipse around 16 square miles of a fantasy world to interact with more than 1,000 lifelike characters. Players must accomplish a wide range of missions while battling creatures, perfecting spell-casting skills and collecting loot in underground caverns. Not only does Oblivion look gorgeous, but this singleplayer adventure also features real-world physics (e.g. arrows fly through the air with an arc influenced by force and gravity) and randomly-generated locations, such as a forest that looks different every time the level is loaded.
   Gear
   Another CES awardwinner is the Samsung HLS5679W, the world’s first LED light-sourced DLP rear-projection HDTV. This 56-inch television replaces the colour wheel and lamp-based image engine with a LED lightsourced single chip that offers a host of advantages including a brighter picture, increased colour gamut reproduction, shorter turn-on time (seven seconds) and improved longevity. But few of the gawkers at the Samsung booth likely cared about the technical reasons for the sharper picture as show attendees couldn’t take their eyes off the stunning video loop of nature footage. Due out in April for $4,199 US (no Canadian pricing confirmed as yet), this true high-definition set (1920 x 1080p) offers two 1080p HDMI inputs and an integrated ATSC and NTSC tuner

New building, rise in quarterly profit on display

BRUCE CONSTANTINEAU
Sun

COMMUNICATIONS I When you throw a lavish party for 600 of your closest friends, hold a splashy fireworks show to celebrate the opening of your new office building, and follow that the next day by reporting a 69-per-cent increase in quarterly company profits, chances are your annual general meeting will be short and sweet with no angry shareholders asking embarrassing questions.
   That’s the successful formula Shaw Communications Inc. brought to Vancouver this week as it also increased the stakes in its market-share battle with Telus Corp. by launching a digital phone service and holding a virtual lovefest of an annual meeting Thursday at the new 41-storey Shaw Tower.
   Chief executive Jim Shaw — basking in the glow of sharply higher earnings of $75.7 million for the three months ended Nov. 30 — said the Calgary-based cable company is geared for success this year as Shaw and Telus invade each other’s traditional turf. Shaw has entered the telephone market, while Telus plans to launch its Telus TV service in the second half of this year.
   “Nine months ago, we had no telephone customers, but now we have almost 100,000 and expect to have 200,000 by the end of this year,” Shaw told shareholders of the company’s recent entry into the digital phone business. “We intend to win the race for customer loyalty, and we take nothing for granted.”
   Shaw told reporters after the 30-minute meeting that his company will consider entering the wireless market in the future.
   “We’re intrigued by some of the new [wireless] technologies, such as WiMax and WiFi, but we haven’t done enough work yet to give you a solid plan,” he said. “The issue is do you want to be the fourth man to a four-man party. Right now, we’re having a hard time meeting demand on the products we have.”
   Shaw and Telus each serve about 1.5 million households in B.C., and both are working feverishly to attract more business with new products.
   Telus announced a long-term deal Thursday with 20th Century Fox that will give the new Telus TV service access to some of the studio’s latest films, such as Fantastic 4, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Robots.
   “We’re very confident that access to blockbusters like that will drive the acceptance of our new service,” Telus vice-president of consumer marketing Fred Di Blasio said in an interview.
   The new TV service will feature video-on-demand technology that requires an ADSL link and a set-top box. Di Blasio said Telus is “absolutely thrilled” with the response to the service during a recent soft launch in Alberta.
   “This service will provide people with choice, something they haven’t really had in the past,” he said. “That’s why we’ve had such a warm response to the service offering we’re had in Alberta.”
   Di Blasio said Telus welcomes the phone-market competition from Shaw, which he calls a “solid, well-run company.”
   “But their value proposition is pretty simple,” he said. “We try to imbed new services [in our products]. Our new TV service won’t be a ‘me-too’ service. It will be tomorrow’s TV today.”
   Shaw said a lot of customers must like the simplicity of his company’s product offerings because more than 90,000 customers have bought its phone service in the past nine months. However, he insisted Shaw won’t cut prices to try to buy market share in B.C.
   “We’ll compete on service,” he said. “I’m assuming there’s lots of room for both [Shaw and Telus in the B.C. market].”
   Di Blasio echoed a similar pricing strategy, saying the launch of Telus TV has to be financially sound for all stakeholders.
   “Customers want things that simplify and make their lives more meaningful and they’re prepared to pay for that,” he said.
   BMO Nesbitt Burns telecommunications analyst Peter Rhamey said Telus and Shaw both appear to be maintaining “price discipline” in the market.
   “Logic says that cooler heads should prevail and as long as Shaw gains something like 34,000 phone subscribers a quarter, maybe that’s acceptable to Telus,” he said in an interview.
   Rhamey said the Shaw-Telus battle in B.C. is a natural evolution as Shaw was due to deploy new products in Vancouver, one of its biggest markets.
   “We knew three years ago that Telus would launch Telus TV and it’s a strategy that makes sense,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll make a lot of money doing it but they certainly need the competitive symmetry so they can offer their customers similar bundles of services [as Shaw].”
   Rhamey said increased competition means consumers should expect competitive prices on most services, even if they’re locked into contracts for a certain period of time. He noted the wireless industry suffered a huge backlash years ago when customers under contract had to pay 50 cents a minute for a service that was available in the market for 30 cents a minute.
   “So when you came off your contract, you really didn’t feel like sticking around with Rogers or Bell because you felt exploited,” Rhamey said. 
   

Shaw launches VoIP phones, Telus TV will arrive this year

Jim Jamieson
Province

The smorgasbord of telephone, television and the Internet on one platter is intriguing the technology world these days, and two of western Canada’s large communications companies announced moves yesterday to enhance their respective abilities to eat the other’s lunch.

Telus Corp., Canada’s second-biggest phone operator and the incumbent in B.C. and Alberta, said it is building a $15-million satellite and content-distribution centre in a remote location at the northern end of the Fraser Valley as a major building block in the launching of its much-anticipated digital-television product, expected to be available in the Vancouver area by midyear.

Meanwhile, Shaw Communications Inc., western Canada’s largest cable-TV operator, launched its digital residential-telephone service in Vancouver. Shaw said it expected the company’s phone business (already in Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Victoria) to grow from its current 90,000 subscribers to 200,000 by year end.

Shaw’s phone service uses Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, which packages voice calls as data and sends them over broadband connections — opening up a whole new range of features.

Fred Di Blasio, Telus vice-president of consumer product marketing, said his company would be combining VoIP telephony and digital TV to offer customers innovative products.

“We have over 100 years experience on the phone side,” he said. “When I look at the competitors’ offerings today on telephony, these are basic services.”

Di Blasio said Telus TV — currently being rolled out on a limited basis in Alberta — will incorporate such features as visual caller ID that appears on a customer’s TV screen when the phone rings. He said Telus TV will launch here with more than 200 video and audio channels and will have more than 300 by year end.

Telus’s basic TV service will start at $22 per month for 23 channels.

Shaw CEO Jim Shaw said he didn’t think there had to be winner or loser in the telephone market — although investment firm Merrill Lynch has estimated Telus will lose about 150,000 lines to the cable provider in 2006.

“There’s lots of market for everyone here,” Shaw said. “There is a lot of demand for flat-rate calling and for consumer competition in the local phone market. Hopefully, it makes the other provider improve and the consumer wins.”

Shaw’s service includes a local residential phone line, unlimited long-distance calling anywhere in North America and several features. The cost is $55 a month for current Shaw customers.

The company also introduced a new direct-dial long-distance plan.

Telus’s basic monthly phone service in the Lower Mainland is about $25, but long-distance service includes an administration fee of $4.95 a month. Other features are extra.

Shaw said his company will look at adding a phone product for the business market by the end of this year and may offer a wireless-phone option as part of a bundle in 2007.

© The Vancouver Province 2006

Shaw launches digital phones, Telus offers TV service

Fiona Anderson
Sun

The war of the telecommunications titans heated up Wednesday as Shaw Communications Inc. launched its digital telephone service in Vancouver and Telus Corp. volleyed back with news of its Telus TV.

Entering the phone market gives Shaw a “triple-play” of Internet, television and telephone in Vancouver, Shaw’s CEO Jim Shaw said at a news conference.

“With the launch of Shaw digital phone in Vancouver, customers can take care of all their entertainment and communications needs with one phone call to Shaw,” Shaw’s president Peter Bissonnette said. “They also have all of their entertainment and communications services on one bill each month.”

For $65 a month — or $55 for those who already have Shaw cable television or Internet — customers will get unlimited local and North American telephone calls, as well as standard phone features like call display and voice mail.

The price may be higher than Voice-over-Internet-Protocol services — such as Vonage which charges about $40 per month — but the service is better, Bissonnette told reporters after the announcement.

“[Standard VoIP] is an Internet-to-Internet service,” Bissonnette said. “So you actually contend with traffic on the Internet. On our service we actually built a separate network so … it’s not contending with anything.”

“It makes a big difference in terms of quality,” he said. “It’s a consistent, reliable service that we’re offering as opposed to one that relies on computers and on the Internet.”

Shaw already has 90,000 customers signed on to its phone service, which it launched in Calgary last February and in Victoria in October. It hopes to have 200,000 customers by the end of 2006, Jim Shaw said.

More than 11 million people called on the Shaw network over Christmas, and the company now processes 1.5 million calls a day, Bissonnette said.

The telephone service — which Shaw calls digital telephone rather than VoIP service — is delivered through existing telephones by installing a small black box called a digital telephone terminal in the home. The box is owned by Shaw and loaned free of charge to customers.

Customers who are willing to get a new phone number can have the service installed immediately, Bissonnette said. Those who want to keep the number they have will need to wait between four and seven days for the number to be transferred.

The all-in-one price includes 911 and 411 service as well as around-the-clock support.

Shaw also introduced its international calling plan — called Shaw International Direct — to coincide with its Vancouver launch, which came a day before today’s annual shareholders’ meeting. The long distance service enables Shaw customers to dial direct — something they have not been able to do to date — at rates as low as three cents a minute to China and Western Europe.

Shaw anticipates expanding its telephone service to the North Shore, Richmond and Burnaby in April.

Meanwhile Telus announced it was building a $15-million satellite and content distribution centre in an undisclosed location north of the Fraser Valley that will bring customers of its Telus TV — to be launched in B.C. in the second half of 2006 — hundreds of digital channels.

Telus‘ Internet protocol television service had a friendly launch — among friends and family of Telus employees — in Alberta in November. That has led to “spill-over” that has brought subscribers on board, said Fred Di Blasio, Telus vice-president of consumer product marketing. How many people have signed up, Di Blasio would not say.

“We are taking a slow-go approach to our launch. We want to make sure we don’t overwhelm our installation and repair workforce to do the installations properly and serve our customers in a future-friendly manner,” Di Blasio said.

The investment in the satellite centre — called a head end — is part of a $1.8 billion investment in the province in the last three years.

Telus also plans to launch a VoIP telephone service but no potential date has been disclosed, Di Blasio said.

Apple’s CEO: IMac with Intel inside ‘will knock customer’s socks off’

Province

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple Computer Inc.’s historic shift to Intel Corp. microprocessors came months earlier than expected as CEO Steve Jobs yesterday debuted personal computers based on new “two-brained” chips from the world’s largest semiconductor company.

The first Macs to deploy Intel’s Core Duo processors will be the latest iMac desktop, whose circuitry is all built into the display, and the MacBook Pro laptop.

Yesterday, Apple’s Jobs was joined at the Macworld Expo by Intel CEO Paul Otellini to unveil the new jointly designed computers.

The new iMacs will have the same all-in-one design as previous models and will be available with 43-centimetre and 50-centimetre screens for $1,499 and $1,999.

Jobs claimed the new models are two to three times faster than the iMac G5, based on an IBM chip.

“With [the] Mac OS X [operating system] plus Intel’s latest dual-core processor under the hood, the new iMac delivers performance that will knock our customers’ socks off,” said Jobs.

The MacBook Pros — with 39-cm displays — start at $2,299.

The shift comes as Apple is on a streak with its hugely popular iPod music players. Earlier, Jobs said the company brought in a record $5.7 billion US in sales during the holiday quarter as it sold nearly three times as many iPods as it did in the same period a year ago.

But yesterday’s focus was on Apple’s Macintosh computers. Jobs said its entire Mac line will be converted to Intel by the end of this calendar year.

© The Vancouver Province 2006

Vancouver will be the fifth market to get Internet digital calling

Derrick Penner
Sun

Shaw Communications Inc. is bringing its phone war with Telus Corp. to Vancouver today with the launch of its Internet-based digital phone service in Western Canada’s biggest local telephone market.

Shaw Communications would not comment officially Tuesday, but the company sent out an advisory that its Shaw Digital Phone service would be launched “with operations officially commencing” today.

It will make Vancouver the fifth market to receive the service following Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Shaw’s first foray into B.C. last October in Victoria.

The service Shaw has launched in other markets is $55-per-month Voice-over-Internet-Protocol telephone service that includes unlimited long distance in North America, voicemail, call forwarding, call waiting, call display, call return and three-way calling.

Shaw’s phone package is more expensive than VoIP services such as Vonage ($40 per month) and Primus ($50), however at its Victoria launch, Shaw president Peter Bissonnette said his company could offer a dedicated phone network and 24-hour technical service.

At the end of October, Shaw boasted that it had signed up 56,000 subscribers for its phone service.

In an interview, technology consultant Eamon Hoey of Hoey Associates said Shaw can expect to see 20,000 — 40,000 customers sign on in the Lower Mainland during the first year, with most coming from the ranks of Shaw’s existing cable television subscribers.

However, Hoey doesn’t believe that will significantly cut into Telus‘ short-term revenue given its strong growth in wireless and high-speed Internet subscriptions.

“My sense is that this is going to be a long battle and there’s lots of opportunity for Telus to co-exist and co-compete in this kind of environment,” Hoey said. “Over the longer term, what we’re seeing is a restructuring of the entire business in telecommunications.”

Telus spokesman Jim Johannsson said the company is “very prepared” for the head-to-head battle in Vancouver, having already dealt with the Edmonton and Calgary launches.

Johannsson said the defection of customers to Shaw “has not gone unnoticed,” and characterized the company as a “solid, well-run competitor.”

However, he said Shaw has so far only created a basic phone network and gone to market with the simple value proposition that VoIP is a cheaper way to make long distance calls.

“A lot of consumers are saying, ‘you know what, long distance is already pretty darn cheap, and when the cost savings aren’t there, they are coming back [to Telus],” Johannsson said.

Johannsson said Telus‘ launch of Telus TV is one of the firm’s responses to the competitive threat. He added that the company will also focus on creating ways to integrate services in a way customers find useful and are willing to pay for rather than giving them additional discrete services.

Johannsson said Telus will launch Telus TV and its own VoIP service in Vancouver later this year. He added Telus‘ VoIP offering is currently undergoing employee tests in Alberta.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

May Wong
Sun

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple Computer Inc.’s historic shift to Intel Corp. microprocessors came months earlier than expected as CEO Steve Jobs Tuesday debuted personal computers based on new two-brained chips from the world’s largest semiconductor company.

The first Macs to deploy Intel’s Core Duo processors will be the latest IMac desktop, whose circuitry is all built into the display, and the MacBook Pro laptop.

When it announced the massive switch in June, Apple said it expected to begin making the transition by mid-2006. On Tuesday, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs was joined at Macworld Expo by Intel CEO Paul Otellini to unveil the new jointly designed computers.

The shift comes as Apple is on a streak with its hugely popular IPod music players. Earlier, Jobs said the company brought in a record $5.7 billion US in sales during the holiday quarter as it sold nearly three times as many IPods as it did in the same period a year ago.

But Tuesday’s focus was on Apple’s Macintosh computers. Jobs said its entire Mac line will be converted to Intel by the end of this calendar year.

Otellini came onstage wearing a clean-room suit that the chip company has famously used in its ad campaigns — and that Apple once lampooned in an ad of its own.

For years, Apple shunned Intel, which has provided chips that power a majority of the world’s PCs, along with Windows software from Microsoft Corp. In the late 1990s, Apple even ran TV ads with a Pentium II glued to a snail.

But Apple, looking for faster, more energy-efficient chips, became increasingly frustrated in recent years as its chip suppliers, IBM Corp. and Motorola Corp.’s spinoff, Freescale Semiconductor Inc., failed to meet its needs.

Of particular concern was IBM’s apparent inability to develop a G5 chip that would work well in notebook computers.

Intel, has been focusing on developing chips specifically tailored for notebooks. In 2003, it launched its Centrino notebook technology with a processor that boosted battery life by minimizing its power demand without hurting performance much.

During last week’s International Consumer Electronics Show, Intel unveiled the latest generation, the Core Duo, which features two computing engines on a single piece of silicon.

It was that chip that Apple decided to fit into the new IMacs and MacBooks.

Though the change to Intel has occurred faster than expected, it still poses some risks.

Besides potentially alienating a fan base accustomed to doing things differently, Apple’s move opens up the issue of backward compatibility and the possibility that PC users might run pirated versions of Mac OS X, Apple’s critically acclaimed operating system, on their generally cheaper non-Apple computers.

During his speech, Jobs demonstrated software that will make older software work on older Macs with a minimal performance hit. But he did not comment on how the company will lock its operating system to its hardware.

The change, however, does not appear to have alienated another important player, Microsoft, which offers a Mac version of its popular Office productivity suite. Roz Ho, general manager of Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit, said: “We’ll continue shipping Office [for the] Mac for a minimum of five years.”

The new IMacs will have the same all-in-one design as previous models and will be available with 17-inch and 20-inch screens for $1,299 and $1,699 US. Jobs claimed the new models are two to three times faster than the IMac G5, based on an IBM chip.

All the new computers will include Apple’s Front Row software and a remote control, which lets users watch videos, listen to music or browse photos from across a room.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Jobs likely to unveil laptop with new processor

Jim Jamieson
Province

Speculation is rampant that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will unveil his company’s first Intel Corp.-based computer today at Macworld Expo.

Jobs dropped the bombshell last June when he announced that Apple would shift from a processor platform that has been built by Motorola and IBM for the past 21 years.

Jobs traditionally makes a least one major product introduction during his opening keynote speech at Macworld and it’s expected by analysts and numerous industry watchers that he’ll show off an Intel-powered laptop, either the iBook or the PowerBook, about five months earlier than expected.

Intel chips cost less, run faster and generate less heat than the products built by Motorola and IBM, meaning higher performance machines with a smaller footprint and possibly at a lower price.

Richard Smith, professor of communication at Simon Fraser University, said the relationship will benefit both companies.

“Intel in the last years has turned the tables on PowerPC [Apple’s current processor type] by coming in with lower power consumption and faster processors,” said Smith.

“For Intel, it gets on board with a company that has a small, but important share of the market. This could be an excellent business partnership.”

© The Vancouver Province 2006