1. Digitcom Wins Gold for Best Small Business Solution from Canadian Channel Elite Awards
On September 11, 2012, Digitcom Canada was awarded the Gold Award for Best Small Business Solution Provider at the Canadian Channel Elite Awards. The honour is awarded “to the company for the most innovative problem-solving hardware and networking, cloud-based or software-based solution.”
The Canadian Channel Elite Awards are given out annually to recognize IT solution providers for “innovation, leadership and commitment to creating value for their customers.”
Digitcom’s honour was presented at the Canadian Channel Elite Awards Gala at the Paramount Conference and Event Centre inWoodbridge,Ontario.
At yet another glitzy announcement session, Apple introduced the long awaited iPhone 5 this month and once again proved their unquestionable marketing prowess. To find evidence of the company’s ongoing market domination one needs only to look at the fact that Apple’s entire 5 million unit production run of the iPhone 5 was sold out within three days…a divisive issue itself that has some praising Apple for its marketing genius while others decry it for persistently taking advantage of its dedicated fan base.
Despite the meteoric sales numbers, not everything went well with the release of the iPhone 5, as Apple’s much vaunted mapping program stumbled out of the gate, not coming anywhere close to what Google Maps is able to offer.
3. RIM’s Misguided Blackberry 10
While the tech world has had a few tantalizing peeks at Research in Motion’s new Blackberry 10 operating system over the past several months, the struggling Canadian mobile company unveiled more than ever before at this month’s Blackberry Jam conference in San Jose, California. As one might expect, for a company known for its persistent inability to innovate much of the talk this week has been on revolution, RIM’s attempt at radically altering the mobile world as we know it.
But despite all the talk about shifting paradigms and mobile revolutions, there’s been a distinctly familiar air to what we’ve been hearing out of the conference, leading me to echo the words of other market analysts, that while the Blackberry 10 is a fresh new sleek look for RIM, its still oh so misguided.
4. Preparing Your Business for the M-Commerce Era
No longer simply communications platforms, the growth and development of mobile devices on ‘connect everywhere’ networks has created a new and very lucrative channel in the traditional ecommerce market. As it stands, this new mobile commerce (m-commerce) space is expected to grow exponentially over the next several years, accounting for an estimated US$31 billion in revenue by 2016, according to Forrester Research.
The reality of the situation for many businesses, however, is that this m-commerce space is treated like little more than a necessary annoyance, with companies unwilling or unable to dedicate the necessary resources to make their e-commerce websites effectively available on mobile platforms
So how can businesses effectively tap the growing m-commerce market without having to run a separate website for every mobile platform?
5. iPhone 5 still not an “Ethical iPhone”
In response to damning reports of worker suicides, hazardous working conditions, and rampant illegal overtime, at the start of 2012 ethical watchdog group SumOfUs.org launched an awareness campaign to pressure Apple into changing the inhumane working conditions along its Chinese supply line.
The petition of over 200,000 voices demanded that Apple revamp its manufacturing practices, calling for the Cupertinotech giant to begin producing ethical products. So is the newly unveiled iPhone 5 Apple’s first ethical iPhone? Of course Apple says yes, but SumOfUs has a different perspective, the iPhone 5 is not an ethical iPhone – not even close.
6. Competition Bureau Sues Rogers, Telus, BCE
Canada’s Competition Bureau launched a lawsuit against the Big Three – Telus, Rogers and BCE Inc. – this month, alleging the use of “misleading advertising” for text services that fool customers with hidden fees. Also included in the suit is the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association.
The watchdog is seeking refunds for customers and will hope to implement $31 million in fines. The penalties amount to $10 million each to the carriers and $1 million to the association.
The Competition Bureau notes that it is targeting the Big Three because they control roughly 93 percent of Canada’s wireless market, but the watchdog ensured that the other seven percent got the message.
