Category: Technology

Canada a bright spot for tech investment in 2016 [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

Canada wrapped up 2016 on a high note when it came to investment in venture capital-backed companies, according to a recent report, bucking the global trend of a 10 per cent decline in deals and a 23 per cent drop in total funding compared to 2015.

The MoneyTree Report from PwC Canada and CB Insights shows that deals and dollars were up in the last quarter of the year, with the number of deals increasing seven per cent from 248 to 266 in 2016 with total dollars invested equaling $1.7B USD in 2016, less than on per cent lower than last year’s figure. Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

Waterloo media startup snags Vice Canada CRO [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

The trend toward having a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) is growing, and Waterloo, Ont.-based Sortable has just hired its first by luring a media veteran from Vice Canada.

CROs are essentially responsible for all revenue-generating processes in the organization, said Ryan Fuss, Sortable’s latest employee, and it’s a role that’s become increasingly common in Silicon Valley. Traditionally, revenue generation has been fragmented throughout business units, he said, and there was a need to have a C-level executive overseeing all revenue generation. This includes sales and marketing, and enables a company to fully align to create cohesive plans. “It’s definitely an emerging trend.”

Read my full story on ITBusiness.ca.

Persistent Memory Platform Support Will Take Time [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

TORONTO — Over the last several years, there’s been an increasing overlap between what was traditionally seen as memory and traditionally seen as storage, as well as the increasing use of persistent memory.

Last week’s Persistent Memory Summit in San Jose, organized by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) as part of its Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI), included a presentation by Steve Pawlowski, vice president of advance computing solutions at Micron, outlining how computing architectures must change to get the right data to the processor efficiently and how persistent memory such as NVDIMMs can play a role.

EE Times spoke to Pawlowski following his SNIA keynote on why new computing architectures must support current software applications, the current roadmap for NV-DIMMs, and what might be the non-volatile memory of choice down the road.

Read my full Q+A on EE Times.

Miniaturization, IoT Fuel Electronics Adhesive Growth [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

TORONTO — The market for high-quality electronics is growing, and with that also comes a rising need for technology adhesives. This demand has been driven, in part, by miniaturization.

“As the market for high-quality electronics has increased in the past few years, the need for material to protect and bond electronic components has also increased,” said Technavio Senior Industry Analyst Chandrakumar Badala Jaganathan, in an interview with EE Times.

The research firm’s recent Global Electronic Adhesives Market 2017–2021 report is forecasting the market to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of close to 10% between now and 2021, said Jaganathan. “The market in 2017 is expected to grow by 8.89% compared to 2016.”

Read my full article on EE Times.

Up, Periscope: TVO advances digital transformation via Twitter video platform [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

TV Ontario (TVO)’s The Agenda is broadcasting on a new channel.

As part of the publicly-funded education station’s digital transformation, its flagship current affairs program is now available on Twitter, via Periscope, at the same time it airs on television.

TVO’s choice of Twitter was serendipitous in many ways, said John Ferri, TVO’s VP of current affairs and documentaries. The channel had people attending the Online News Association Conference in the fall, as did Twitter. “They were moving in that direction and thought we would be a good partner,” he said. “We thought the alignment was great because Twitter is a platform that resonates with our existing audience and the audience we’d like to reach.”

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

Additive 3D Printing Creates Another Supply Chain Tier [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

Improved materials with be where the innovation is in the coming years, disrupting the current paradigms of parts replacement and storage. Not surprisingly, 3D printing got a lot of attention at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, but it’s also poised to fundamentally change the behavior of supply chains.

Just as consumers are now able to more easily tap into 3D printing, 3Diligent set out to make the technology readily available globally for businesses, and last month, it announced that addition of a new process for metal parts. In a telephone interview with EBN Online, company CEO Cullen Hilkene said that the company is now able to offer the broadest range of popular metal rapid manufacturing options.

Read my full article on EBN Online.

B2B firms’ commerce goals outpacing their digital capabilities, study finds [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

Those pesky legacy systems could be costing you a big business deal.

CloudCraze’s recently released 2017 B2B Digital Commerce Imperative Report found that for many B2B brands, legacy commerce systems are proving to be a barrier to digital transformation, preventing organizations from providing the agile, flexible buying experience customers demand.

In fact, the report found that as many as 70 per cent of companies have lost a business deal because of an ordering-specific pain point, and 31 per cent say they’ve missed out on at least $2 million in sales. According to CloudCraze, these numbers reflect an inability to accommodate the complex needs of today’s buyer because as a B2B business, they are relying on outdated commerce systems: More than 65 per cent last updated their systems more than two years ago, before Software-as-Service (SaaS) had matured.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

With Outgrow.co, your business can build its own interactive viral content [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

What started as a means to streamline a company’s business development process with an interactive tool has now become its core business.

Five-year-old New York City-based Outgrow.co was always fielding questions from potential customers about pricing for its web and app development services, so it decided to create an interactive online tool to make it simple for a potential client to discover quickly if they are serious about becoming a paying customer.

In the last year, however, this has become Outgrow.co’s focus, said co-founder Pratham Mittal. “It’s hard to build interactive content today. You need designers.” And this equates to high costs and a great deal of time that many businesses don’t have.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.

NRAM’s Day Is Finally Here: Report [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

Better late than never might be a good way to sum up NRAM.

After years of not quite be ready for wide adoption, a new report from BCC Research is predicting that Nano-Ram (NRAM) is finally in a position to disrupt incumbent DRAM and flash memory with commercialization expected in 2018. The Wellesley, MA.-based research firm said the first non-volatile memory chip to exploit carbon-nanotube technology looks like it’s finally ready to have a serious impact on computer memory.

“Industry experts had given up on waiting for CNT memory,” said BCC Research editorial director Kevin Fitzgerald in an interview with EE Times. “I believe one needed fresh eyes to really see that the time was coming when it was really possible to make the switch from silicon to carbon.”

Read my full article on EE Times.

Optimizing customer service will be driven by AI and collaboration, Salesforce says [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

The future of exceptional customer service will be a united front powered by artificial intelligence.

That’s the theme of Saleforce’s Second Annual State of Service Report, which surveyed more than 2,600 customer service professionals worldwide to better understand how smart technologies are affecting service protocols and how service leaders are responding to customer expectations.

For example, the report found that 64 per cent of consumers and 80 per cent of business buyers expect companies to respond in real time.

Read my full article on ITBusiness.ca.