Organized crime has taken over from the kids when it comes to major online danger from viruses, spam and spyware, according to Vancouver-based corporate security vendor Sophos Inc.
   And that trend to more dangerous, inventive and financiallydamaging attacks on both corporate networks and individual PCs will continue to grow in 2005, the company said in a 2004 year-end report issued Wednesday.
   The British-owned company has its North American headquarters in Vancouver.
   “The nature of the game is really changing,” Sophos’ senior security analyst Gregg Mastoras said in an interview.
   “Years ago it was largely groups of people who wanted to impress their friends and demonstrate their capabilities, but now you see a financial incentive in all of these activities.”
   As an example of what’s lurking out there, Mastoras described what he called the Brazilian banking case, in which a virus lay dormant on the systems of PC users until they use their browsers to do online banking.
   He calls these the new online bank robberies.
   “Boom, you go to your bank’s website and all of a sudden the virus starts to collect information from logging your keystrokes,” said Mastoras. “It grabs your account number, your password and any other information and off it goes.”
   In another instance, added Mastoras, the virus would see you log on and pop up a screen that looks exactly like your bank’s website.
   “So the user says, well, it must be my bank because I typed in my usual URL,” said Mastoras. “But the screen says that the bank has some security concerns and could you please give us your name and account number to verify who you are.”
   It might also ask for your pin number.
   “And they take that and they grab it and run away.”
   Added to this are spam-based “phishing” attacks in which a thief pretends to represent a legitimate business in order to collect credit card numbers and personal identification.
   As well, the past year, according to the Sophos report, has seen alliances formed by spammers who need the help of virus writers to spread their massive e-mailings.
   “They basically pay virus writers to get them assets from which to launch their spam,” said Mastoras.
   And spammers have become increasingly more inventive in rotating their own domain names and hiding their domain owner information, said the report.
   “In the past 12 months the speed at which they use new techniques has gone from weeks to days and hours — soon it will be seconds,” said the report.
   The Sophos report also said that 40 per cent of spam now originates from PCs that have been hijacked by viruses.
   As well, Some worms have used armies of zombie computers to launch denial-of-service attacks against websites such as those of Microsoft, Kazaa, the British prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street and the Pakistani government.
   Mastoras said that while some virus creators — and there are now more than 90,000 viruses out there — do get arrested, those are largely the amateurs.
   One of these, 19-year-old German hacker Sven Jaschan, is accused of writing both the Netsky and Sasser worms, which accounted for 55 per cent of all virus attacks reported in 2003.
So far in 2004 there have been 10,724 new viruses identified, a 51.8-per-cent increase in virus creation over 2003
Jaschan, recently offered a job by a German security firm, is expected to appear in court early in 2005.
“When someone’s caught it’s a little bit of a surprise, because that means they’ve probably slipped up and done something to alert the authorities to where they are,” said Mastoras. “And that means they weren’t that sophisticated to begin with.”
   While Jaschan was responsible for two of the major viruses, most of them continue to come from the U.S., which spread 42.1 per cent of them in 2004.
   Canada came fourth with 5.7 per cent, outranked by South Korea in second place with 13.4 per cent and China (including Hong Kong) at 8.4 per cent.
   Surprisingly Jaschan’s home country of Germany produced only one per cent of viruses.
   While Sophos reports an increase in anti-virus and anti-spam legislation in 2004, Mastoras said that the company would like to see a formal worldwide framework where virus infections or spam can be reported easily.
   “We’ve had the experience where we’ve been able to identify some activity and yet when we contact the government or local police authorities they really don’t have the capability or, quite frankly, the interest, to capture this data or to follow leads,” said Mastoras.
   “If there were some central authority that could accumulate what’s happening out there and then formulate a legal attack [on it] you’d see a lot more criminals appearing in the newspapers and being put in jail and I’d think you’d see some reduction in virus and spam counts.
   Mastoras said that he never expects to see a magic bullet that can overcome viruses and spam, especially where the Windows operating system is concerned. “I think that no matter what you do, the virus writers are always going to get around it and they’re going to find the loopholes, so [fighting spam and viruses is] always going to be a challenge in that sense.”
   However, said Mastoras, there are two basic steps that can be taken to reduce the impact of the problem. One is to update anti-spamware and anti-virus software regularly. The other is to apply the security patches supplied by Microsoft.
   [email protected]

SOURCE: SOPHOS

VANCOUVER SUN FILES
A computer user downloads a patch to protect against the Blaster worm last year. Viruses are a threat to computers everywhere.

A Vancouver company has jumped into the video-on-demand market, offering specialty channels and movies to anyone with a broadband Internet connection.

Broadbandtv Corp., located in downtown Vancouver, claims to be the first service in the country to offer TV on demand via the Internet, going so far as to offer the first three months of viewing free to customers. The customer would have to buy the Broadbandtv player, a device similar in size to a DVD player, which hooks up to the Internet and the television. Broadbandtv Corp. (www.broadbandtv.ca) sells the player for $399, although it is offering it for $299 during its start-up period. Shahrzad Rafati, president and CEO of Broadbandtv Corp., says the company, whose slogan is “Make Your TV Smarter,” is targetting viewers whose specialty tastes are not being addressed by existing cable or digital television services. Program categories are news and business, animation, children’s, sports, lifestyle, foreign language, movies, music and after dark.

“Our customers are people who are tech-savvy and want to watch video over IP [Internet Protocol], and some are people who want to watch extreme sports or content that is not available on TV,” says Rafati. “Others are people who don’t like conventional stuff, who want things like surfing, golfing, movies and newscasts in different languages.” Thus far, the company’s foreign-language fare consists of latelelatina, a Latino-themed channel, AsiaMovieChannel.com and AdvenTV, the latter service broadcasting in the Turkish language. Rafati says she is currently negotiating to get Al-Jazeera, the Arabic news channel.

Among the 11 sports offerings are sailtv, devoted to nautical programming and Varsity TV, dedicated to high school sports.

The company has a half-dozen “after dark” adult entertainment choices.

Broadbandtv currently offers 75 channels. Some of these can be found on existing cable and digital services, including A&E, CNN, The History Channel and BBC. Customers choose what they want to download from the Broadbandtv interactive guide. The process is similar to using a VCR. When using Broadbandtv, viewers download the programs in real time, then watch them later. A Broadbandtv player holds 200 hours of programming. The basic services costs under $13 a month.

Rafati says her system “is not a replacement for TV, it’s a complement to TV.” But cable TV networks may see this as a threat. Shaw Cablesystems has its own video on demand system. Shaw on Demand operates through the cable system. A call to Shaw Communications president Peter Bissonnette was not returned.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

CREDIT: Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun Irfhan Rajani’s company Apparent Networks specializes in network intelligence and solutions.

Today, in the second of a series on the players that topped the B.C. Technology Industry Association’s 2005 technology impact awards, BusinesBC looks at Vancouver‘s Apparent Networks, named for excellence in product innovation.

Computer networks are like highways. When all the signals are operating, the lanes wide open and the pavement smooth, traffic zooms through at top speed.

Throw in a malfunctioning signal or a little construction and the whole business slows to a crawl.

When it comes to network traffic, Vancouver‘s Apparent Networks makes the software that acts as traffic reporter, traffic cop and tow truck all rolled into one.

It could be a computer network in a storefront insurance office or a corporate network that circles the globe.

When things start to slow down, Apparent’s software can pinpoint the problem and offer up the solution, presenting a virtual X-ray of the system that lets the network engineer troubleshoot without even leaving his or her desk.

“We’re the guys who can tell you don’t cross the Lion’s Gate bridge because there’s a lane out and we don’t have to have a person on every street corner to let us know that,” said president and chief executive officer Irfhan Rajani. He started Apparent Networks along with Fred Klassen, the brains behind AppareNet, the company’s network intelligence software, and Kelly Daniels, another serial entrepreneur and a co-founder of Mainframe Entertainment.

That talent for troubleshooting makes Apparent’s products a valuable commodity in a corporate world where network slowdowns and inefficiencies can translate into huge costs. It has propelled the company into prominence, most recently earning it the BC Technology Industry Association’s annual award for excellence in product innovation. That marks the second time Apparent Networks has topped the BCTIA awards list. In 2003, the company won most promising start up.

For Rajani it’s a hat trick, with Apparent Networks being the third company he has nurtured from start up to success.

“They’ve all been Canadian and it’s so far, so good,” said Rajani, chatting in the Gastown offices that he managed to score for a great price simply because Apparent launched in the midst of the tech meltdown when dot-com offices complete with foosball tables and refrigerators full of pop and junk food were going begging. “We seem to be doing reasonably well.”

The modesty belies the client list that includes such heavyweights as Veritas Software, the B.C. government, Telus, which is also an investor, and others. A new deal in the works to be announced this week is promised to bolster that list, although Apparent is keeping mum on the identity of the latest client while the details are wrapped up.

For the 42-year-old Rajani, it’s a far cry from the days when he first graduated with a bachelor of commerce degree from the University of Calgary in 1986. The oil patch wasn’t booming at the time and the job market there wasn’t conducive to paying off a hefty student loan.

Rajani started his apprenticeship as an entrepreneur working in sales with a Toronto tech company, but probably about the time in his career when others would be burning out from the 24/7 schedule, Rajani took off for a year-long travel sojourn.

The global education couldn’t have hurt. He came back and co-founded Zentra Computer Technologies, supplying storage solutions and services to companies like PMC-Sierra and Macdonald Detwiller before selling it and moving on to his second start up, the software company Telebackup Systems.

It sold in 1999 for $143 million, allowing Rajani and his wife Brenda to take a year off to travel before returning to Vancouver where they launched both a new company and a family.

Their children are now two and four. The company is five years old and definitely standing on its own two feet.

“When we returned it was a case of, ‘let’s do this a little differently,’ ” said Rajani. “I had financing from the last company, we put together a management team and we spent a great deal of time up front identifying where the market need was.”

At the time, it was bucking a trend. Everyone else — well not everyone but a substantial number of dot-coms and techno wonder wannabe companies — were closing their doors. The entire industry was, as Rajani points out, “in its nuclear winter.”

“So while they were going splat, it seemed a bad time to start, but in retrospect, the timing was good,” he said.

Not only was space like the Gastown premises plentiful, but so were tech employees.

“We were able to get good engineers,” said Rajani. “We weren’t competing with fly-by-night dot-coms.”

At the same time, the devastated tech economy demanded real products and a real prospect of profits instead of mere promises.

“It was a time that required discipline,” said Rajani. “Our technology was not overly sexy but it was needed.”

The things that didn’t disappear in the dot-com demise were the networks, and Apparent took on the job of making them work more efficiently, more effectively and without problems that could slow and stop applications.

If you’ve ever sat at your computer and grumbled at the time it takes for it to work, or grind through a process, chances are you’d appreciate Apparent’s dedication to solving those problems.

“This is something that resonates with everyone, be it CEOs of Fortune 500 companies or consumers,” said Rajani. “We’re all dependent on these networks that have proliferated over the past five years.”

The 40-person privately held company had a 300-per-cent top-line growth in the last year and Rajani says the challenge now is to keep it up.

“It’s about how do we manage the growth and keep the momentum going,” he said. “We really are playing in the land of the giants and we have to do sure we don’t get crushed inadvertently.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

INNOVATION I British Columbia’s technology industry is earning accolades around the world, but it’s not always recognized at home. The B.C. Technology Industries Association’s annual technology impact awards aim to change that, and over the years they have shone a light on companies that went on to become industry leaders. Today, in the first of a weekly series, The Vancouver Sun looks at Victoria‘s PureEdge Solutions, named for the best application of technology in the BCTIA awards.

When the U.S. department of defense decided to modernize the 100,000-plus forms used by army personnel around the world, it turned to Victoria‘s PureEdge Solutions.

At a time when protecting the security of information is a hot button on the corporate agenda, PureEdge clients may find it comforting that the company that is transforming its paper trail with XML forms-based systems has been deemed good enough for the army to trust.

The contract is only one of many scored by the 75-person PureEdge team, but most come from clients far removed from the company headquarters in the scenic ‘burbs of Victoria on West Saanich Road.

If you check out the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, you’ll find the voluminous reporting requirements of public companies there are fulfilled with the help of PureEdge software. If you pay taxes in Los Angeles, chances are it’s on a PureEdge generated form.

The business opportunities are as massive as the mountains of paper corporations and organizations use, and PureEdge’s vice-president of marketing Paul Chan said the problem isn’t finding customers, but meeting the huge and growing demand for their software and services.

“We provide the electronic forms that most organizations run their business on,” he said. “A lot of people, if they think about forms, they think of things like human resources forms, procurement forms, but when you look at it about 80 per cent of every kind of process that happens in a company is governed by a form, and traditionally that is paper.

“It can be as simple as a purchase order form or as complex as the business using them.”

For businesses, pushing paper off the side of the desk and replacing it with the electronic version is not only an environmentally friendly measure; it’s a financial imperative.

The U.S. armed forces conversion to the PureEdge solutions alone will result in annual savings of $1.3 billion US. The forms are used by 1.5 million army personnel.

That’s not just the cost of paper, passing it around, or the price of putting a stamp on an envelope. Organizations that still shuffle paper are becoming an anachronism, as new ways of doing business demand an updated digital approach to business processes. Just ask any supplier of one of the larger retail mammoths how purchase orders are delivered or how far a scribbled-out invoice, faxed or mailed in, would get in their customer’s system.

“It’s transformational,” said Chan of the shift from paper to electronic forms. “Typically when people buy our software, we are providing the software and services around implementing that software and they have a specific core process they are trying to automate, make more efficient, and help them to become more competitive in their industry.”

PureEdge is a spin-off success story from the University of Victoria, launched some 12 years ago by Eric Jordan, now the company’s chief strategy officer and David Manning, researchers at the university who took some of the work they had done in automating images in the fine arts department and used it as the nucleus of the research that ended up with PureEdge.

For a small Vancouver Island company, it plays in a pretty big league, alongside such competition as Microsoft and Adobe. It has more than 200 customers with 300,000-plus organizations using PureEdge products.

“We are probably the oldest young company,” jokes Chan. “People may not have heard of us because we do a lot of our business outside of Canada.

“In B.C. we have done some applications but not nearly as many as you would think.”

The company is reaping the benefits of U.S. legislative initiatives such as the Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA), a trend that the provincial and federal governments here are taking up.

The company builds its solutions based on XML, (eXtensible Markup Language), and early on in its development of the technology won a best-of-show award at Internet World with its digitally signed XML. Earlier this year it won the Accenture and Massachusetts Institute of Technology digital government award for its work with the U.S. army.

It is much more than simply shifting data from paper to a digital form. It’s all about integrating systems in electronic business and e-government, at the same time meeting standards for security, privacy and other issues. Solutions can be complex, taking into account such conditions as the requirements for multiple signature levels for example on a purchase order. “We have ended up being chosen by industry groups as a mechanism for how their members would do transactions within their industry,” said Chan.

For example, the company has created the standardized insurance forms used in 51 U.S. states.

In the case of the SEC, the company had to come up with a solution for the problem of getting public companies to file in such a way that the regulatory body could easily extract the information.

“The SEC was a circumstance where they wanted to solve a very specific business problem,” said Chan.

PureEdge has made a name for itself in security, not surprising for a company that counts the SEC and the army among its clients.

“We got a great reputation working with organization like the FBI and other intelligence organizations in the U.S.,” said Chan. “And the department of defense as you can imagine has very strict requirements around security.

“It ended up making us the best of breed in that category.”

While stepped up compliance regulations might be a headache for corporations and other organizations, they have been the catalyst for the development of such solutions as the ones that are the focus of PureEdge’s business.

“The number one thing driving the growth of net new purchases is compliance,” said Chan. “It can be anything.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

SAN FRANCISCO — Hoping to build upon the power of its Internet-leading search engine, Google Inc. is believed to be developing an online payment system that would pose a stiff challenge to online auctioneer eBay Inc.’s industry-dominating PayPal service. Industry analysts, merchants and investors were digesting reports Monday that the Mountain View-based company is testing a payment system — codenamed Google Wallet — in hopes of rolling out the service later this year. Investors appeared to view Google as a formidable threat. Google’s shares gained $6.40, or 2.3 per cent, Monday to close at $286.70 US on the Nasdaq Stock Market, where eBay’s shares dropped 81 cents, or 2.1 per cent, to finish at $37.24.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

CREDIT: Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun It’s the 20th anniversary of wireless phones in Canada and Keeley Evenson, 20, a sales rep for Telus Mobility, was just born when the first large cellphone (left) came on the market. On right is Motorola’s newest cellphone, a Mike i833 Baby Phat.

Brad Lowe, Nokia Canada‘s Vancouver director of research and development, has seen the future, and it’s in Finland.

He’s just back from that country where the cellphone is as common as snow, with reports of phones that allow users to text message a cab with their location for pickup and then get a confirmation back instead of hanging around on hold. They can even use cellphones to buy lottery tickets.

In Vancouver, we’re getting a hint of that future with cellphone parking payments already available.

“We’ve gone from something that was really designed for one specific use — to be able to make phone calls anywhere, any time — to today when you have a multi-media computer in your pocket that happens to make phone calls as well,” says Lowe.

“You are replacing multiple pieces of consumer electronics with one device that allows you to do digital photography, listen to music, watch video and, by the way, you can make a phone call as well.”

It was 20 years ago this July 1 that Canada‘s first cellular networks were turned on.

Back then $5,000 would buy you a cellphone that was so heavy it could double as a lethal weapon. It also came with a humongous battery that seemed to last mere minutes.

If you drove a few kilometres in the wrong direction, you’d be clear out of the limited cell range. If you couldn’t afford to buy, your other option was leasing a phone for $89 a month. And that didn’t even start to pay for the air time.

Twenty-first-century cellphones are slick, tiny devices that offer a full range of mobile communications and entertainment options.

You can talk on them, text message on the them, walkie talk on them, e-mail, play online Poker, deliver data, take pictures, send pictures and video, listen to music, play personalized music for your callers, pay your parking, check out videos and in the latest incarnation, even tune into television. And that’s only a start.

The size of cellphones has shrunk almost as fast as the number of features they offer has expanded.

Prices have also plummeted. While early cellphones were probably worth more than some of the used cars they were driven around in, phones today come with a wealth of promotions and incentives that often bring their price down to zero.

“This is the 20th anniversary of wireless, and now one in two Canadians have a wireless phone. It has been a fascinating industry to watch the growth,” said George Cope, president and chief executive officer of Telus Mobility.

“It has changed the fabric of people’s lives. It is a technology that has also, in a way, changed society.”

Last year was the year of the camera phone. By now camera phones are becoming ubiquitous and offering huge improvements over the earliest low-resolution models. Nokia’s recently announced Nseries next-generation multimedia devices — note how they aren’t even called phones any more — can be found with Carl Zeiss optics, a mega pixel camera and multi-gigabyte memory, and other features like VHS resolution video, WLAN and music.

Music is the next must-have on cellular users’ wish lists.

This week Sony Ericsson announced its second Walkman phone, the W600 which combines high-quality digital music with 3D gaming and mega pixel imaging, another convergence device that offers voice communications almost as an aside to its array of other functions, from Internet access and e-mail to many others that used to require a full PC to deliver.

Text messaging also has taken off, with Canadians sending some 115 million text messages last March, or 3.7 million a day, compared to the 10 million they sent in March 2002, the last month before the wireless carriers moved to interoperability so text messages could be sent and received between any phones, regardless of the carrier.

That same capability will be added to photos, videos and music starting next month.

They are still communications devices. though, and walkie-talkie-like phones are catching on with consumers who can chat across the continent as easily as if they were in the same block.

“Since we launched our 10-4 service we haven’t been able to keep enough handsets in our stores,” said Andrew Wright, Bell Mobility’s associate director of business development.

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association has a lot to celebrate with the industry’s 20th anniversary.

“When you look back to 1985, it was a service for the elite, a novelty service for those people who could afford it,” said Marc Choma, the association’s communications director. “Now you just don’t think twice about it.

“Even five years ago, people would say, ‘Do you have a cellphone?’ Now people say, ‘What’s your cell number?'”

[email protected]

– – –

20 YEARS OF GOING WIRELESS

1985: Wireless networks were launched in Canada with only a few early adopters who had the money and the patience to use the earliest cellphones.

1995: 2.6 million Canadians had cellphones

2005: 15 million Canadians use wireless phones. An estimated 1.5 million more will get their first cellphone this year, the same number that bought phones in the first decade of wireless service.

BY THE NUMBERS

$1 billion: The average annual spending on networks and infrastructure since the industry started, for a total of $20 billion to date.

95 per cent: The proportion of Canada‘s population who live in areas with wireless coverage.

July 1, 2005: Implementation date by Canadian wireless carriers of inter-carrier Multimedia Messaging Service, allowing for pictures, videos and sound files to be sent between clients of different carriers.

Source: Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and TELUS Mobility

CELLPHONES WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS

Ericsson W600

Plays high quality digital music, has 3D gaming, mega pixel imaging, text and voice communication and Internet access. Firm has signed a music deal with Napster.

Motorola Mike i833

Baby Phat

Dressed up with real diamonds (4 carats) Push-to-talk with built-in earpiece jack. Digital voice recorder, voice recogniton dialling and downloadable ringtones and wallpapers.

Nokia’s Nseries

The N91, developed in Vancouver, is a multimedia phone that snaps print-quality images, reads e-mail, plays music, surfs the web, provides mobile TV and more.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

Canadians may be able to enjoy the digital delights of satellite radio as soon as this fall, thanks to a ruling yesterday by the federal broadcast regulator.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved licences for two satellite-based systems and one ground-based proposal, paving the way for the debut of subscription radio.

But the tough Canadian content guidelines set down by the federal agency in granting three licences sent the applicants scampering back to their spreadsheets to ascertain if the business model still flies.

The CRTC said the two satellite services must offer at least eight original Canadian channels broadcasting at least

85 per cent Canadian content. They can offer nine foreign channels for each Canadian channel.

As well: At least a quarter of the Canadian channels must be in French. At least 25 per cent of the music on the Canadian channels must be new music and 25 per cent must be from emerging Canadian artists.

“I expected all three would be approved, but the cost [of producing the Canadian content] is huge, so they’ve got to hope it does incredible things to their share price because I doubt they’re going to recover in this market what it’s going to cost them,” said Pat Bohn, a Vancouver-based broadcast consultant.

“I don’t think it’s possible to generate an audience for those channels given what they have to do for programming. My guess is people will be listening to all the foreign channels.”

The two main players each expressed optimism that they would be launching the service by the fall.

“We’re hopeful we’ll get something done,” Steve Tapp, president of Canadian Satellite Radio, which is partnered with U.S.-based XM Radio, said in an interview with The Province. “It’s more Canadian content that we had in our application and now we have to sit down with our partner and decide what this means to our business plan.”

Kevin Shea, CEO of Sirius Canada Inc., a consortium of the CBC, Standard Radio and U.S.-based Sirius Satellite Radio, said he expected the higher Canadian content standards, adding that “at first glance it doesn’t look to be unrealistic.”

The third licencee is a land-based system of broadcast towers offered by Toronto-based CHUM and Astral Media of Montreal. But CHUM executive Paul Ski said it would be difficult to compete when only 10 per cent of the channels offered by the U.S.-backed players are Canadian. The three applicants have until mid-November to inform the CRTC whether they will take up a licence.

© The Vancouver Province 2005

EDMONTON — This month, Canadians may notice a new specialty electronics store in their malls as The Source by Circuit City replaces nearly 900 former RadioShack locations across the country.

“It’s probably the biggest rollout of a new store brand in Canada ever,” says Lyndsay Walter, vice-president of marketing for The Source’s Barrie, Ont. headquarters. “It has taken a lot of organizing.”

In May 2004, U.S. big-box electronics retailer Circuit City, previously not in the Canadian market, bought out RadioShack Canada‘s parent company, InterTan Inc., in an acquisition valued at $284 million US.

Then RadioShack’s U.S. parent company revoked the brand’s Canadian licensing rights from competitor Circuit City. A legal battle ensued, and earlier this spring, a Texas court ruled that Canadian stores must drop the RadioShack name by the end of June.

All the same, Circuit City prepared for the outcome, spending months developing a new brand for its Canadian subsidiary. The name conveys an identity for the 2,500-square-foot mall locations as a source for consumer electronics, and ties it to the powerful Circuit City brand, second biggest among U.S. electronic retailers, said Walter.

“It does substantiate the name,” he said.

Part of the rebranding involves new signage, as the stores transform between now and June 30. There are also billboards and transit boards depicting the new name, along with associated advertising flyers, newspaper ads, and a TV and radio campaign coming up to focus consumer awareness.

“We’re layering it into the market a little at a time because all of the stores haven’t been switched over yet,” said Walter, adding Circuit City has expanded its Canadian advertising budget by $22 million to make the new name as familiar to consumers as the old one.

Stores will also be outfitted with a new colour scheme and other interior touches to customer areas. Name-brand product lines will be expanded, and RadioShack-branded merchandise will be replaced by Circuit City‘s private label brand.

Walter said the rebranding has come off without a hitch, and credits Pattison Outdoor Signs and Quick Signs for help.

Paul Messinger, a marketing professor at the University of Alberta‘s school of business, said as an incumbent in an established market, The Source by Circuit City needs a successful communications strategy to get the public to buy into the new name.

“If they do it well, I think they will have not a large obstacle,” Messinger said.

He said other companies have successfully rebranded, including Telus, formerly known as Alberta Government Telephones, and American brewer Miller, which abandoned its “champagne of beers” strategy a number of years ago in favour of a blue-collar appeal.

Messinger said the electronic chain stores’ association with Circuit City is sound strategy. Those familiar with the brand recognize it as a U.S. big-box retailer. While its identity in Canada is different, associating the store chain with the Circuit City name lends credibility, Messinger said.

Currently, there are no plans to locate Circuit City big-box stores in Canada. But many of its product lines will be introduced into The Source by Circuit City, with a larger lineup available online, Walter said.

RadioShack, meanwhile, has not given up on Canada. The Fort-Worth, Tex.,-based retailer announced in April it will re-establish presence here with stores in a number of key locations by Christmas. It created a Canadian subsidiary company last month.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005