Krystle Chow’s Online Portfolio

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
June 25, 2007 (June 27 on OttawaBusinessJournal.com)

Click here to view this article on OttawaBusinessJournal.com.

Brian Mahony of Espial says the IPTV market could help wireline companies gain customers back from cable companies.
Photo by DARREN BROWN for the Ottawa Business Journal

Today’s consumer faces a dizzying array of telephone, television and Internet options – known as the “triple play” – with cable companies falling over each other to offer the cheapest bundles with the most features.

But telecommunications companies have been falling behind in the race to win customers ever since cable firms discovered a way to offer voice as well as their more traditional television and Internet services.

Although some telcos have ventured into the satellite market to try and take back some of the market from their cable competitors, analysts say the technology is often not as versatile and interactive as what is being offered by the cable companies.

Enter Internet protocol television (IPTV) and with it Espial Group Inc., an Ottawa company which makes software that offers telcos a way to provide cost-effective, interactive television through existing DSL lines.

“Remember the old days when we only had five television channels with maybe a few more if you had bunny ears? Well, we’re now in an environment with hundreds of channels (with cable and satellite television), and then you have our technology which enables a YouTube-like environment with millions of channels,” says Espial’s vice-president of marketing Brian Mahony. “The technology could also make it possible for you to chat on your instant messenger while watching Canadian Idol.” (more…)

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
June 25, 2007 (June 27 on OttawaBusinessJournal.com)

Click here to view this article on OttawaBusinessJournal.com.

Jeff Bennett (left) and Joe Bevk of ServiceVantage say Ottawa software companies sometimes have a short-sighted view when it comes to learning from their colleagues.
Photo by DARREN BROWN for the Ottawa Business Journal

Ottawa’s software industry is like any other thing in its infancy: it just hasn’t learned to share with others yet.

At least, that’s what some industry insiders are suggesting.

Joe Bevk and Jeff Bennett, partners at software business consulting firm ServiceVantage Corporation, say local companies tend to be so focused on their specific applications that they may ignore any chances to work with other companies who might share similar client bases, even if they don’t do quite the same thing.

Take, for example, on-demand response management solutions maker Kinaxis Inc., manufacturing monitoring systems company Sciemetric Instruments Inc. and aviation maintenance software firm Mxi Technologies, Mr. Bennett says.

On the surface, the three companies may have nothing in common, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find that Kinaxis may want to sell to Ford – which works with Sciemetric – Sciemetric might want to deal with Mxi’s customer Boeing, while Mxi might be interested in selling to Honeywell, which works with Kinaxis.

“If the CEOs of these three companies were to meet and roll out the Rolodex, there’s no doubt (more…)

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
June 11, 2007

Click here to view this article on OttawaBusinessJournal.com.

BTI Photonics CEO Lance Laking.
Photo by DARREN BROWN for the Ottawa Business Journal

Fibre-optics technology isn’t just for the telecom industry anymore, and Ottawa’s photonics companies are capitalizing on that fact with innovative new products for telecom and beyond.

Six-year-old BTI Photonics is one such company. It caters to the boom of high-bandwidth sites like video uploading phenomenon YouTube with its system-level photonics product that dramatically increases the capacity of networks “at the edge.” These networks are used by small business parks and suburbs, and are smaller than the core infrastructures for central offices provided by companies such as Nortel and Cisco.

“With the onslaught of video-streaming on the Internet, sites like Joost and Google are increasing their requirements for video capacity and there are huge demands on bandwidth and service providers’ infrastructure,” says BTI’s chief executive officer Lance Laking. “It’s a challenge for cable and telephone companies to deliver this bandwidth competitively.”

Mr. Laking says the video-streaming trend has changed all requirements for infrastructure, with what is currently available for networks at the edge unable to accommodate the huge bandwidth needed.

However, BTI’s product is able to fit on top of existing systems to increase capacity, thereby saving the huge cost of (more…)