Krystle Chow’s Online Portfolio

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
Oct. 15, 2007

Click here to view this article on OttawaBusinessJournal.com.

Third Brigade’s Brian O’Higgins says the arrival of all the online tools and applications that constitute “Web 2.0″ has given rise to a new rogues’ gallery of security threats for which government must be prepared.
Photo by DARREN BROWN for the Ottawa Business Journal

GTEC conference looks at customer-dictated service delivery and how governments, businesses can get there together

The high-tech world has been abuzz for some time with the concept of “Web 2.0″ and customer interaction with various aspects of tech, so it was only a matter of time before the government started looking at what that means for the public sector.

This is the theme for this year’s Government Technology Exhibition and Conference (GTEC), which starts Tuesday and runs until Oct. 17. The conference, now in its 15th year, allows hundreds of small and large tech companies to mingle with and market to the various levels of government and gain insight into how to work with the country’s largest enterprise.

GTEC executive director Kevin d’Entremont says the advent of user-generated sites such as YouTube and Facebook has changed the face of service delivery, and governments, just like any other enterprise, can’t afford to be left behind.

“Web 2.0 means that the consumer is now dictating when and where people want to receive services,” he says. “There are expectations in the marketplace, and governments have to follow suit with their services as well, and change their approach to be more suitable and agile. Service delivery has to be tailored or developed to serve the demands of social computing.”

Kim Devooght, vice-president (public sector) of IBM Canada which is an exhibitor and sponsor of the event, says GTEC is a great opportunity to (more…)

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
Oct. 11, 2007 (Oct.15 in the paper edition)

Click here to view this article on OttawaBusinessJournal.com.

Orezone CEO Ron Little.
(Photo supplied)

Ottawa-based mining company Orezone Resources Inc. has bought out its partner Gold Fields Ltd.’s share in its flagship West African gold mine for $200 million in cash and shares.

The deal means that Orezone has now moved from being a company focused mainly on exploration to an intermediate producer with expected production of 292,000 ounces of gold annually by 2010, at cash operating costs of $356 US per ounce.

“This transaction is very accretive, simplifies our structure, sharpens our focus on the region and enhances our production and growth plans,” said Orezone CEO Ron Little in a statement.

Orezone’s latest feasibility study showed that Gold Fields’s share in the Essakane project adds 1.6 million ounces of gold to Orezone’s reserves, plus 2.4 million ounces in measured and indicated resources and 761,000 ounces in inferred resources.

Through the Burkina Faso project, Orezone now owns a 100-per-cent interest in 2.65 million ounces of contained reserves, 4.4 million ounces of measured and indicated resources and (more…)

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
Oct. 8, 2007

Click here to view this article on OttawaBusinessJournal.com.

Insiders, analysts say MOSAID’s stock undervalued because of market’s confusion

Have MOSAID Technologies Inc. and its new management broken their promise to deliver better results for shareholders, despite a painful restructuring process that included the ousting of several top executives and the layoffs of almost three-quarters of its staff?

It’s been more than a year since the epic public proxy battle between MOSAID and U.S.-based investment firm Loeb Partners Corp., a fight for control which has resulted in a narrowed focus on MOSAID’s biggest money-maker – its patent licensing business – and the divestiture of its two other divisions.

Loeb Partners, which had sharply criticized MOSAID’s management and argued that the company could do much better, brought in three new directors, a new CEO, board chairman and chief financial officer (see sidebar). (more…)

By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
Oct. 1, 2007 (Oct. 3 on OttawaBusinessJournal.com)

Click here to view this article on OttawaBusinessJournal.com.

Embotics’s Jay Litkey says the firm has no direct competition for its first product, but that advantage isn’t likely to last for long.
Photo by DARREN BROWN for the Ottawa Business Journal

Analysts bullish as company comes out of stealth mode

Virtual machine life cycle management systems firm Embotics only had its coming-out party earlier this month, and its flagship V-Commander product is still in its beta testing stage.

However, the company definitely wasn’t idly biding its time while in stealth mode – in December it attracted an undisclosed amount of funding and it’s already seeing product revenues. It’s put its product out for testing across several companies in the pharmaceutical, telecommunications, Internet hosting, financial services and manufacturing sectors.

The company has a relatively simple proposition for a complicated technology that’s become increasingly important for large firms. What happens with virtualization is (more…)