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| Got Innovation |
March 9, 2004 |
By Peter Wolchak
Backbone’s call for innovation: in this issue’s cover story, we label Toronto’s iFire technology canada’s most innovative tech company. That’s a big statement but analysts we spoke to could not think of another new Canadian technology that is set to make as big an impact on day-to-day life.
iFire has developed an entirely new way to build flat-screen monitors and this homegrown innovation has been validated by major Asian display firms. Japan-based TDK has invested tens of millions of R&D dollars into iFire, which also recently signed a joint development agreement with Dai Nippon Printing Co. And Japan’s Sanyo Electric expects iFire to make a big splash in the worldwide TV sales market by 2006. All of these are significant endorsements considering the company has not yet released a product to manufacture and, as iFire’s president is quick to point out, bad things could still happen. A technical glitch could be discovered or a competitive technology could suddenly appear. But industry watchers who follow the worldwide display market think this improbable.Which means iFire will most likely be a major player in the display industry within about 18 months, earning our nod for innovation.There is, of course, a whole list of other notable and familiar Canadian tech companies. The first to pop to mind is RIM, which has remade the concept of e-mail, boasts international customers and is currently performing extremely well on the stock market. And then there’s Corel, which took on Microsoft and lived to tell the tale, Zero Knowledge, whose privacy play is only going to get more relevant, and Cognos, whose business intelligence technology may not be sexy but does drive a lot of value for its corporate customers.But there are many other Canadian companies which deserve recognition, maybe some - like iFire - that are still basically unknown. If you know of one send me an e-mail and we’ll check it out for possible inclusion in a future issue.
ABOUT VIRUSES, KEEP THIS IN MIND
In February it seemed viruses were taking over the computer world. Mydoom flooded The SCO Group’s Web site, forcing the company to put up a temporary site. And security software firm F-Secure declared Mydoom the fastest-spreading worm ever and also “the worst e-mail worm incident in virus history.”These attacks have drawn a lot of attention and have hopefully prompted everyone who didn’t already have good firewall and anti-virus software to rush out and buy some. But with all the concentration on PCs and notebooks, people tend to forget about PDAs. These are computers, too, which can become infected and pass that infection around. “Even if you are not using critical business applications on a PDA, when they are in their cradles attached to your network-attached PCs they have the ability to get to your critical corporate applications,” said Jack Sebbag, the Canadian vice-president and general manager of Network Associates, which makes the McAfee VirusScan product. With millions of unprotected handhelds in corporate environments, Sebbag said, “These devices are a virus-writer’s dream.”PDA-scanning applications are additional components with both McAfee and Symantec’s anti-virus and firewall products and aren’t included in the main suites. So even if your computer is protected, your PDA may not be.
BACKBONE PUMPS UP ITS CIRCULATION
We here at Backbone would like to take a few words to pat ourselves on the back a little. As we enter our fourth year of publishing we have survived a tough time for magazines, having recently witnessed Red Herring, Industry Standard, Elm Street and Shift fold in the last number of months. But more than surviving, Backbone is growing.
On top of our regular circulation of 105,000 copies through the Globe and Mail, we have recently added 23,000 new subscribers through two corporate distribution agreements. We just thought we’d share the good news with you.
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