I was at Deloitte’s TMT Prediction 2010 launch event yesterday morning at the Fairmont – The Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Here is a recap of the event and some thought on the predictions and the discussions we had during the event, including Google and Twitter. I’ll also write about Twitter and try to convince Duncan Stewart, the Director of Deloitte Canada Research: Technology, Media & Telecommunications, Life Sciences and GreenTech of why Twitter is a force to be reckoned with and is here to stay. In fact, by the time I finish this post, I have the intention of convincing any Business, Finance, Technology, Media or Telecommunication person reading it of the high value there is in following me, reading my blog and working with me for Business and Web Strategy, Industry and Business Analysis.

Winning the MyTMT Prediction 2010

This time around, Deloitte actually launched a competition called MyTMT prediction, opening it to the public. I was glad to be in the five finalists and also learn during the event that I won the competition with my prediction that Google is poised to massively disrupt the traditional Telecom Industry, to the applause of approximately 200 Business and Media people during the launch event yesterday, January 19th in Montreal.

Business Strategy

Many people have asked me what the prize was. It was recognition, from the Jury, from a big consulting firm like Deloitte and also many people in the Technology, Media and Telecommunication industries. I also won exposure, mingling with like-minded people, and participating in the conversation about foreseeing and predicting where Technology is bringing us and how it impacts our Businesses and lives. As Deloitte themselves argue, the value of the Predictions event is to

explore emerging trends that will have an impact on Canadian businesses in 2010.

and to

helping their clients evaluate complex issues, develop fresh approaches to problems, and implement practical solutions.

There are dedicated TMT practices in 45 countries in the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific. DTT’s member firms serve 92 percent of the TMT companies in the Fortune Global 500. Clients of Deloitte’s member firms’ TMT practices include some of the world’s top software companies, computer manufacturers, semiconductor foundries, wireless operators, cable companies, advertising agencies, and publishers.

About the research
The 2010 series of Predictions has drawn on internal and external inputs including: conversations with TMT companies, contributions from DTT member firms’ 7,000 partners and senior practitioners specializing in TMT, discussions with financial and industry analysts, and conversations with trade bodies.

Being able to foresee where things are going allows strategizing, planning for the long run. Being able to monitor things allow for swift changing of Business tactics so that the changing environment can have less deleterious effects.

This is why Deloitte’s TMT Predictions 2010 is essential reading:

Similarly, somebody reading my blog back then in 2005 would have already known the pitfalls of using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer based on quasi-prophetic words at the time, totally vindicated by the recent huge security debacle involving Microsoft, Google, China, and some other 30-odd U.S. firms this January:

During and after these brushes with Justice, Microsoft officials have repeatedly been heard chanting the mantra “Innovation, Innovation. If Microsoft is broken into smaller pieces, we won’t be able to do our Innovation.”

But see, before all this, by bundling their inferior Internet Explorer with Windows, they still managed to make IE the most used browser on the planet since they also force Windows down the throat of the PC-buying customer.

But once they achieved this, what do you think they did with IE? Do you think they kept on innovating, adding features to it, sorting out the kinks, supporting Internet Standards?

No, they sat on it for 3 years. And since IE is a security hazard, the flaws were rapidly exploited. Last year, there were countless storied of PCs being hijacked by spyware, popups everywhere, people tearing their hair off, going mad.

All of this because Microsoft in intent on dominating a segment but does not really care about the customer, nor about innovation. And once they do, and every time a finger points at them, they will strive to cover everything up in marketing or P.R.
—
Not only that, but the Mozilla team, true to Open Source spirit, regularly updated the browser. More specifically, they patched any flaw very rapidly.

Typically, Microsoft will take weeks before even acknowledging a flaw, and if they patch it, the user is left with a vulnerable system for months.
—
Internet Explorer 7 will still be flawed. The problem is Microsoft.

MS’s IE7 will still be flawed. Microsoft still hasn’t learned to support open standards and they still haven’t learned to released a secure software. Instead they are still rushing bug-ridden software and covering it up with P.R. and marketing millions, the latest case being Visual Studio 2005.

Then they also want you to get their Windows Defender anti-spyware software. How come they cannot patch their faulty software first and foremost?

Microsoft hasn’t learned and won’t learn from its mistakes. It’s a monopoly and feels safe enough there. So it will rely on weird tactics for a long time. Like removing all trace of some Linux-bashing articles from the Internet. Like funding pseudo-neutral analysts to tout their software and bash alternatives. Like spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about alternate products. Like enabling only passport-registered people to post comments on their inane MS-marketing blogs. And who posts there? Well those who have MS passports, that is, MS employees primarily and who will do some mutual back-slapping hoping the community takes it up (astro-turfing – a fake grass root marketing approach). Like stubbornly not supporting Open Standards. Like pissing off customers, partners, and employees all at once. Like creating an artificial shortage of XBox 360.

The choice is yours. Make the best one.

You have the choice to try an alternative: the best browser in the world.

Microsoft has been at it again: trying to minimize the seriousness of the security issues, while bashing other browsers. The Web, however, is quick to point out the flawed reasoning:

Mashable – Microsoft downplays Internet Explorer security holes

It takes years to change an ingrained company culture with blessings of wrongdoing from above, and knowing the software engineering advantages of open-source (“With enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” – Eric S. Raymond), I knew there were fundamental problems with the company itself.

My point of view is validated today with entire governments like France and Germany saying no to Internet Explorer and urging to do the same, but only with 4 years of delay…

So, if you would like to know what I think of where the future in Business and Technology lies, here are the essential posts you should read:

And more predictions from me are here:

Predictions discussion

a. Google

After the presentation of my prediction, Duncan Stewart said “You nailed it. I think for everything, you nailed it. But I don’t agree with one thing”.

And that was about how in the US, people are very used to a certain level of customer service. He does have a point, especially judging by the flood of questions and complaints regarding an issue with continuous switching between Edge and 3G networks. This got the Google-T-Mobile-HTC trinity passing a hot potato around for a while.

Personally, I think it’s just growing pains for Google, but the bases of the innovative disruption are already there and the consumer will like that.

Check out this very insightful text by Jon Stokes on Ars Technica where he describes how selling the handset unlocked and separately from the carrier changes the competitive landscape:

Because AT&T has ensnared—and locked in—legions of consumers with the iPhone, the company’s incentive is to minimize their infrastructure spending so that they can maximize per-user profits. AT&T also has a motive to nickel-and-dime you to death, because it has you locked in with that amazing phone and its accompanying ETF.

b. Twitter

Asked by Michelle Blanc about what his thoughts on Twitter and its positive role in the aftermath of the Haiti disaster were, Duncan turned out not to be such a big fan of Twitter after all.

Here is what I think Duncan should do to do to get more out of Twitter:

1. Use TweetDeck (my favourite) or Seesmic (using it on Android since TweetDeck is not available and it’s very good indeed) to separate different streams into columns: “All Friends”, “Direct Messages”, “Mentions”. In TweetDeck, you can also add your Facebook column.

2. If you like Finance, Trading and Investments,
– register for StockTwits
– download the Nasdaq QFolio app for the iPhone in the App store and follow what people are saying on StockTwits for each ticker.

3. Follow people of interest, those with expertise and breaking news, through search or pre-existing lists on other people’s profiles or on TweetDeck’s homepage. e.g. Follow @howardlinzon, and @fredwilson

Here is why I think Twitter is important:

1. Nasdaq has built an iPhone app which leverages StockTwits, which itself leverages Twitter. I bet this is going to be important for algorithmic trading.

2. Twitter has made deals with Google and Microsoft to the tune of $25M so that their realtime search results appear in the two giants’ traditional search engines

3. Twitter has an ecosystem of 50,000 apps, and growing. It has become a platform where people use it for marketing and finance. This is crucial and there area many other details in my criteria for IPO selection in Two IPOs to look forward to in 2010.

4. Remember IRC channels during the Iraq war? Twitter plays that role today, and much more. Breakout news happens there first, and much later on other channels.

5. I was spending some night in New York and at one point in time there were insistent traffic of fire-trucks and I thought “This is not the city that never sleeps – it’s rather the city where you can never sleep”. My first reflex? Checking #NYC on Twitter to see if there was any danger in the vicinity. Similarly, Twitter will become essential for alerting you to any opportunities in your surroundings. That’s part of the power of real-time and location-based services.

6. Twitter allows you to do social computing. Your trusted friends and contacts will help when you have a genuine question and if you are helpful too.

7. Last but not least… Dell made $6.5M through Twitter channels sales in two years.

Solar

I was a bit disappointed to hear that solar would have some difficulties along the 2010 because of a supply glut. However, stumbling blocks can turn into stepping stones – this may be an opportunity to regularly stock up on the equities, value-averaging along the way until the big break provided the choice is made carefully.

How Deloitte leveraged Social Media for TMT Predictions 2010

Deloitte did very well in leveraging Social Media prior and up to the event. First, they decided to open up submissions from the public, leveraging user-generated content.

They further leveraged several social media applications, services and strategies and Katheline Jean-Pierre has been a driving force behind that, and I actually learned about the MyTMT prediction through her Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Deloitte was present on the Web, on Twitter, and on Facebook, together with UStream, YouTube etc…

Deloitte called upon Laurent Maisonnave of ZeAgence to build upon his social media and video streaming skills – the event was filmed and streamed to Deloitte’s UStream channel in realtime over the web.

They leveraged the Wildfire application for Facebook, which allows campaign management. Any participant could upload their videos and then invite their Facebook friends to vote through the Wildfire app embedded in Deloitte’s MyTMT web page.

Before and during the event, Deloitte had communicated and prominently displayed its hashtag for the event (#TMTPrediction2010 or #TMTPred2010) for others to include in their Tweets.

This morning, I was also flabbergasted to learn that my prediction was shown to 400 Business people at the event in Toronto.

Actually, it will also be shown throughout Canada during Deloitte’s stops in major cities during their TMT Prediction events. I believe they are:
Winnipeg, Quebec, Ottawa, Calgary, Halifax and Vancouver.

Thanks Deloitte for this opportunity and kudos to the team, Duncan, Robert, Peter, Katheline, Laurent and the Jury members.

The event is tomorrow at the Fairmont – The Queen Elizabeth in Montreal from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.

You can see all 5 finalists and their predictions over here.

The submission by the NVI founder, Guillaume Bouchard smacks of marketing as the conversation underneath the submission sounds fake, which shouldn’t be surprising seeing that NVI does just that. However, it is true that the competition among mobile telecom manufacturers will heat up. In fact, all mobile devices will be implicated, including notebooks and tablets.

My own submission has a very bad description on the page, which I tried to get corrected but visibly the incorrect description is still online:

Additionally, Josh predicts that Google’s offering of the free turn-by-turn GPS, Chrome OS, along with free wi-fi service in 47 airports, will greatly impact the telecommunications industry.

Totally not what I said as actually, this disruptive behavior by Google tells me they are not scared to disrupt industries at all and therefore they could disrupt the Telco industry. I just hope that the visual presentation makes that clear.

It’s going to be a lot of fun attending and also seeing the main TMT prediction event tomorrow.

Well done to the other participants too, Louis Cleroux, Kim Auclair, Ron Bunn, Arun Kirupananthan, Bernard Dahl. Laurent Marcoux also submitted a video, but unfortunately I could never see it for some reason.

All in all, the Wildfire app. is great. However, some people have had trouble with their videos’ thumbnails not displaying properly in some sections, including me.

Google Nexus One

From Tim O’Reilly, who noticed and amplified the buzz around Web 2.0 four years ago:

Picasa and iPhoto both sport image recognition, but Apple has to train its algorithms on sample data sets, while Google gets to train Picasa on billions of user images. As Peter Norvig, Google’s chief scientist, once said to me, “We don’t have better algorithms. We just have more data.” Collective intelligence is the secret sauce of Web 2.0, and the future of all computing, and by locking user data into individual devices, Apple cuts itself off from this future. Rather than having MobileMe as a separate revenue add-on, Apple needs to make all of its applications web-connected by default, so that they can learn from all their users.

What we see then is a collision of paradigms, perhaps as profound as the transition between the character-based era of computing and the GUI based era of the Mac and Windows. We’re moving from the era in which the device is primary and the web is an add-on, to the era in which a device and its applications are fundamentally dependent on the internet operating system that provides location, speech recognition, image recognition, social network awareness, and other fundamental data services.

We’re in for an interesting ride. – Tim O’Reilly

Good to see Tim quote Peter Norvig, who is an expert in AI. However, I think Norvig understates one of Google’s keystone algorithms: Machine Learning.

From David Pogue (Pogue is wrong, the machine doesn’t lack a multi-touch screen – it’s software disabled, but Pogue has some insights too):

But at the start, at least, the results are a pair of head-scratchers. The Nexus One is an excellent app phone, fast and powerful but marred by some glitches and missing features — a worthy competitor to the Droid, if not the iPhone. The Google phone store is a neat, centralized place to buy phones, but so far, it offers zero advantages over buying a T-Mobile phone any other way.

Even so, you should root for the Google Store’s success, because the obnoxious policies and fees of the American cellphone companies have gotten out of control. Anything with even a fighting chance of putting power and choice back in your hands is cause for celebration.- David Pogue

From Jon Stokes, comes a highly insightful take on how this disrupts the existing status quo that the marriage of carrier-subsidized handsets creates relative to telecommunications quality:

Right now, with specific phone models available only on specific carriers, consumers must pick a carrier and phone combination. Many consumers actually pick a phone first, and then pick their carrier based on it (witness the mass customer defection to AT&T when the iPhone was announced). If you want to keep using that phone, you have to keep using that carrier. If you want to switch phones without incurring a huge early termination fee (ETF), then you’re limited to the selection that your carrier offers in your area.

This is bad for consumers, but it’s great for carriers. Carriers don’t have to compete solely on network quality; rather, they compete based on a combination of network quality and phone selection. And because they compete partly (mostly?) on phone selection, their incentives are twofold:

They want to offer the largest number of attractive, leading-edge phones in order to attract a user base, and
They want to wring the most money out of that user base for the lowest possible cost.
Incentive number 2 is why wireless networks have performance issues, and why AT&T’s network gets more complaints than all others. Call it the “iPhone curse,” after the “resource curse” that seems to leave oil-rich nations mired in petty tyranny. Because AT&T has ensnared—and locked in—legions of consumers with the iPhone, the company’s incentive is to minimize their infrastructure spending so that they can maximize per-user profits. AT&T also has a motive to nickel-and-dime you to death, because it has you locked in with that amazing phone and its accompanying ETF.

In sum, as long as Apple’s red-hot iPhone keeps new customers coming to AT&T and keeps existing customers around in spite of the poor service quality, the carrier has little incentive to actually improve its network, and every incentive to cram as many iPhone users as possible onto each cell tower.

If Google’s carrier-independent store succeeds spectacularly, it could break the curse. If the idea behind it succeeds, that could break the curse as well. Wouldn’t it be great if Apple ran a similarly carrier-independent iPhone store, or Nokia did the same with its smartphone lineup? I, for one, want to live in a world where a carrier competes for my business by being cheaper and faster than the next guy, and not because it has a phone I want. That’s why I’m rooting for Google’s store idea to catch on, regardless of what the Nexus One kills or doesn’t kill.

Other interesting articles out yesterday and today which talk about mobile telecom industry disruption from Google, which I foretold in 2007 myself:

A week after my “Clash of the Titans – Google vs Apple in 2010 and beyond”, The Financial Times has an article today by John Gapper, called “Google’s open battle with Apple”, which delves into how open or closed each company is.

One thing both Apple and Google have learned is that a solely proprietary strategy has flaws, just as one of pure openness does. They compete by openly expanding their reach while staying partly closed.

So take with a pinch of salt all manifestos about complete openness. Any company that is as valuable as Google is wilier than that. – John Gapper

The thing is, in reality, it has always been true to compete aggressively around your core strengths in business. The fact that Google highly leverages open-source contributions bi-directionally gives it an optimizing edge that Apple does not have in the long-term.

In other news, Apple ditches Intel for Qualcomm’s SnapDragon platform (update: actually, this links, says it’s NOT a SnapDragon), which already powers the Nexus One. Big win for Qualcomm, but also for ARM…

Additional good news for ARM: Marvell shows the first quad-core ARM-powered chip (Fortune/GigaOM).

This does not bode well for Intel, which already had troubles launching the Larrabee chip, but also has a few lawsuits to contend with, including the notion of making its compiler work well only on its own chips.

Bloomberg has a good article on the chip wars today and “How Intel is vulnerable now as people shift to mobile phones to surf”.

Why Google trumps Microsoft on the Web, even if Microsoft buys Yahoo.

Scott Karp, a professional blogger, has a good explanation: “Google is a web-native company”.

The Wallstrip Edge – Howard Linzon

Substitute MS for Apple above?

2010 is turning out every bit as exciting as I thought it would be.

Mobile Telecommunications

On January 5th, Google will most probably announce the availability of its own Google-branded phone, the Nexus One. Already billed as an iPhone-killer, it is going to be no small feat for Google to overtake Apple’s established dominance.

However, ‘no small feat’ does not mean that Google cannot make it. Actually, I don’t think Google is actively pursuing gaining market share from Apple in Mobile Telecommunications. In reality, Google is pursuing a vision, the efficiency and immediacy of a digital lifestyle optimized by Google Engineers. That this pits Google against Apple within the Mobile Telecommunication space is coincidental, an emergent phenomenon.

Some people are questioning that Google’s move into the handset branding will kill its own partners who manufacture handsets. I don’t think this is the case since the hardware itself is built by HTC and all the software enhancements can trickle to other manufacturers. Here, I have the distinct impression that Gartner analysts do not get open-source or the implications within Google’s own eco-system.

Although the inroads by Apple with the iPhone and the iPhone O.S.-based iPod Touch are amazing, Apple breaks Google’s services on their devices. Ever tried using Google Analytics or Google Finance on an iPhone or iPod touch? They don’t work as Apple restricts Flash.

Apple’s machines have sub-standard multi-tasking, and Apple does not like handing control or enhancements to the open-source community. Google, on the other hand, will have good multi-tasking out-of-the-box and loves open-source. To be successful in Technology and Business in this day and age, I advise that you build ‘hackability’ into your product or service. Let it be open and allow other people to build on it.

Here, my preference goes to Google although I appreciate Apple bringing such an impressive multi-touch screen and UI to the masses and I expect Google to subsidize a Telecommunication service through ads as they usually do. I just hope that the FCC and other organizations don’t block the acquisition of AdMob further.

It will hard to resist the brand appeal and a phone which reminds you simultaneously of BladeRunner and Tron.

Mobile computing – Netbooks and smartbooks

Apple has enjoyed enormous success with its laptops. The latest machines are innovative, with the multi-touch trackpad, the amazing screens and 64-bit Snow Leopard with Grand Central Dispatch (easily dispatch computing to several cores) and OpenCL (harness the GPU for computing).

With Google-branded notebooks rumoured for the end of next year, I expect the two to clash again in the mobile computing space.

It will all boil down to what value the end-user derives when on-the-go. Do you derive more value from using the Web and connecting to your social networking applications than doing hard computing?

If so, Google will eat up market share, as it will be cheaper. The rumoured specifications are superlative, with SSD being the norm as well as computing power by ARM and graphics powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra. With no moving parts and a higher throughput, Google’s machine can be faster and optimized for the Web.

It is still open whether Apple’s own tablet (an Apple announcement for the 26th of January is planned) will contain the iPhone O.S. or Snow Leopard but that device will also compete in a similar space. No doubt this will pitch Apple into the eBook industry and Google already occupies some of the space here because of their Book digitizing activities.

I love the Apple machines and Snow Leopard 64-bit, and for the moment I give them the edge, but I am open to the fact that Google could wow us all at the end of 2010.

If there is one thing that Google should do, it’s not to reinvent the wheel but rather leverage Linux for the computing intensive applications.

The Cloud

Google has optimized data centers around the world and scalable architecture, built on customized open-source GNU/Linux. Google’s cost of development of Operating System and software is minimized as it highly leverages existing Open-source code and volunteers around the world. Google has its core operating architecture optimized even down to the level of hard disk drivers.

Google optimized DNS resolution, optimized JavaScript, owns dark fiber, builds one of the fastest JavaScript browsers ever, is preparing a Chrome-based Operating System, etc…

What does Apple have?

Google unquestionably has the edge for the Cloud. And I argue that Google’s edge in Cloud computing goes beyond any other cloud computing offering in the world because it is the better engineered solution.

Videos

Google has YouTube, which reigns supreme with the user-generated content/’Broadcast Yourself’ crowd. The addition of HD videos on YouTube has increased the quality level very much. Being free because of ad-subsidization is a boon,but can also be a distraction.

Here, however, I would prefer buying HD from Apple, as my user experience would be better – I don’t get ads unless the ads are product placement inside the content, not inside the player.

Music

With iTunes, the Apple Store and such a wonderful experience finding songs, being recommended new artists, albums and songs by Genius and purchasing songs immediately downloaded, Apple has an edge.

However, Google potentially has better algorithms for recommendations for music. Apple grabbed Lala as well and is targeting music streaming from the cloud, so Apple is leading the way here.

It remains to be seen how Google manages this space.

Google vs Apple

Conclusion

All in all, 2010 and the next decade will be a fantastic time to watch these two companies and their leaders compete. To me, Google has the better algorithms and engineered products at the software engineering level while Apple has better hardware, design and user experience.

1. Google Telecom, Hello! – July 2nd, 2007

Google

I envisioned then as TechCrunch had featured a rumour that Google was going to buy GrandCentral, that Google was bent on becoming a Telco or ISP themselves.

The acquisition of GrandCentral and mobile ambitions – The Google phone?

GrandCentral provides you with one phone number linked to all your existing phone numbers, and many other features (thanks to Techcrunch for this great overview) through its website and also through your mobile.

There have been rumors of the Google phone before, and such a device with the mobile Google applications, linked to all the Google integrated goodies mentioned above would be pure bliss for managing and sharing data and event information with contacts when either online or offline thanks to Google Gears.

Google’s killer move

Here is what I predict will happen with Google Telecom. Based on the current state of Telecom, i.e. VOIP disrupting the industry with the old Telcos still charging too much while there are cheaper VOIP offers like the Gizmo Project, Skype, VBuzzer and Jajah, Google will adopt a similar strategy to Google Apps. With Google Apps, Google has a tiered access: free access for users and paid access for businesses.

I believe Google Telecom will offer free calls locally and worldwide to fixed telephone lines and mobiles to individual users and basic paid access for businesses and bring a more severe disruption of the Telecom industry as it will rely on getting more advertising through these channels. Alternately, Google could use the Google Web infrastructure to position itself as an ISP and offer free Internet access to all too.

That’s a killer strategy, and they can pull it off. Beautifully at that.

2. How Apple will revolutionize music-making – March 11th, 2007

Apple

Months before the launch of the iPhone, I foresaw how the multi-touch device will change the way we make music, essentially because multi-touch is organic and enables the use of the device as Midi controllers.

However, the iPhone and the iPod Touch are a little too small for a big revolution. The forthcoming tablet will be different. Being bigger, we can expect many more practical uses like playing virtual instruments live, using the tablet as a virtual mixer and sequencer and so on.

Conclusion

The whole experience of how you make music within a sequencer with virtual instruments is about to be revolutionized by Apple with a forthcoming combination of multi-touch hardware and software based on Logic and running on at least Leopard.

The very act of recording, manipulating and producing music on a computer will become an organic performance in itself.

I don’t know when it’s coming, but I do know it’s soon, probably this year, and it’s going to be Apple and Leopard+.

The Next three ones come from a long post called The Web O.S., Web 2.0, yubnub and YashNub dated October 10th, 2005.

A revolution is under way. It is one of those times when technologies developed separately converge and congeal. From this emerges a new system that is better than the sum of its parts.

3. The Web O.S. / The Cloud – October 10th, 2005

This begs the question of how to propagate technical requirements to an underlying platform to enhance the end-user’s experience with Web 2.0.

The first point of contact is the user’s browser.
…

My view of the Web OS is that it must be a combination of the computer’s OS and the browser. …

Given Firefox and AJAX and great web services, there will be an increasing migration of desktop applications to remotely hosted locations on the web. Of course, not all applications can be hosted this way yet – desktop installed apps will still be around for a long time.

But assuming increased hosted services, it is a simple and logical step to envision that the computer OS can itself be tweaked for Web 2.0 usage. In other words, you could enhance existing Web support, but in addition, you could also strip an existing computer OS from any superfluous capabilities and code. You would then obtain a low-cost alternative to the bloated (and sometimes expensive) OSes currently available.

These WebOS 2.0 PC’s, being cheaper, could be used to power schools, especially in developing and third world countries and businesses alike.

Businesses would also benefit of broadband connections to leverage hosted services.

Although schools in poor areas may have broadband, they would still benefit of the network architecture: imagine just one server providing the necessary web services to a class of pupils. They could all be writing their assignment with a software like Writely.

The whole of the software service maintenance is outsourced – this is less costly in time and money for anyone using a PC with Web OS.

Of note recently is the announcement of the partnership between Google and Sun for cross-marketing of their services. This fuelled a lot of speculation about whether a Web version of StarOffice would be in the works. In addition, people have been talking about a possible Google browser and GoogleOS.

I envision the future Web O.S. to be a stripped down Linux distribution with subsequent enhancements. And the single distribution which is poised as the best contender has to be Mark Shuttleworth’s forever free Ubuntu Linux.

Based on the above, I don’t think Google is preparing a browser or O.S. Because both the browser (Firefox) and the Computer OS (Ubuntu Linux) already exist, it doesn’t seem to be a good strategy to me.

4. Firefox – October 20th, 2005

In December 2009, Firefox overtakes IE 7 to become the Word’s most popular browser.

Firefox

…
My weapon of choice in this area is Firefox and it should be yours too. Mozilla’s awesome open-source browser is highly customizable through a variety of extensions. A personal favourite is GreaseMonkey which allows you to install scripts that personalize the browsing experience of some sites, removing annoyances in some cases or enhancing functionality in others.

My view of the Web OS is that it must be a combination of the computer’s OS and the browser. The advantage with a browser like Firefox is that it is already cross-platform and standards-based. It is therefore a candidate of choice for basing any development of the Web 2.0 services.

I also praised Firefox in this other post in November 2005 – Firefox, the world best browser.

Not only that, but the Mozilla team, true to Open Source spirit, regularly updated the browser. More specifically, they patched any flaw very rapidly.

5. Ruby on Rails – October 10th, 2005

Twitter

Thanks to launching with Ruby on Rails, Twitter has managed to raise $25M at the end of this year.

Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is a Rapid Web Development framework built using Ruby, an open-source and truly object-oriented programming language.

Ruby

I am quite fond of Matsumoto-san’s Ruby language and hence I founded a local Ruby user Group.

Ruby on Rails has made the development of new web services a disarmingly simple thing to do. The very implementation of the Rails framework enables you not to have to repeat yourself in your code. Actually, a lot of the code is automatically generated.

Thanks to David Heinemeier Hansson and thousand of other contributors, RoR is and will continue to be a driving force for evolving Web 2.0 because it’s now easy and fast to build new applications. It’s also worth mentioning that RoR now incorporates AJAX functionality by default.

6. Open-source

I have been involved in Linux User Groups and the open-source community for more than a decade and I use and recommend open-source software for that much to enterprises and individuals alike.

Open-source continues to grow as an influential way of building technology and businesses. Sometimes, the open-source product is better engineered than the commercial product, since:

Therefore, building proprietary solutions from scratch is an increasingly losing battle. It is much better to build around open-source software and open standards, ensuring interoperability and robustness.

Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Ubuntu, Google, Apple Mac OS X are all built with or around open-source software.

By the way, Eric Raymond, the term ‘open source’ won – we rarely hear of Free Software anymore. However, let’s not forget the seminal work of Richard Stallman.

At the close of 2009, one of the most impressive companies of the decade relies heavily on Open-source software, contributes heavily to the Open-Source community and has evolved into a major player in several industries by building a hybrid business model:

Proprietary or closed-sourced core algorithms and technology
+
Heavily leverage open-source technology and contribute back to the community

That company is Google and is a great model for merging technology and business and succeeding in the digital age and the knowledge economy. Note that to replicate Google’s success, you also have to rely heavily on Engineers and Engineering in Computer Science.

World Record marketing

The number of downloads counted today will probably make Firefox go into the Guinness Book of Records. That’s a genius marketing coup.

Reliability and loyalty

I first downloaded Firefox in an early version years ago when it was still “Firebird” and when Microsoft’s Internet Explorer failed me atrociously and I have not regretted it ever since. That experience marked Internet Explorer as a security hazard in my mind ever since. Even during the slowdowns experienced because of memory use in version 2, I still used it exclusively.

It is Open-Source software

As a passionate advocate of open-source, and a participant of Linux User Groups where I have spent years explaining and analyzing the benefits of open-source, this is the proof in the pudding.

As a Software Engineer, my own perspective is that the open-source solution is, in the long run, the better engineered one. This is because of Eric S. Raymond’s insight that after a threshold of open-source contributors, “all bugs are shallow”. If there is a bug in the software, then there is no policy of security by obscurity as some commercial companies practice. Therefore, someone, somewhere must be an expert in that particular field where the bug lies. There is no agenda to delay fixing a bug since the resource is a willing volunteer. Therefore, the bug is fixed, brilliantly and speedily.

The software is necessary and is built, enhanced by the people and for the people, an example of the ideal of freedom and sharing. It is open-source, and therefore it is freely available, freely modifiable, multi-platform, stable and secure, richly extensible and supports open-standards which prevents any vendor-locking and allows me to access the fantastic resources online.

In any case, if ever you have a doubt about the absolute superiority of open-source software for business, just think about how Google is built on open-source technology, including Linux and Python.

Other Open-Source advancements I am especially fond of in addition to Mozilla’s excellent Thunderbird email software are:

1. Ubuntu Linux

Thanks here go to Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman for all those GNU goodies stemming from his particular vision, Mark Shuttleworth and a slew of other contributors.

My version of Ubuntu is a 64-bit operating system which leverages both 64-bit AMD Turion processors of my machine. I got my two latest upgrades – without reinstalls – through the Internet while still using my system and for free.

At the first upgrade I couldn’t use the fancy effects for my desktop, putting in on a 3D cube and so on because my ATI graphics card was not supported. 2 hours later, the community had delivered new code onto repositories around the world for free to do just that. It ran slow. 1 more hour after reading the free forums, I had configured Compiz Fusion and saw it running beautifully.

I have the latest upgrade configured with a Mac OS X look and feel, just for fun, and it’s true that Apple has great design.

This upgrade plays all my audio CDs and DVDs. Compare this to the latest SP3 upgrade of the Windows XP Media Center Edition O.S. which came with my machine: anytime I insert an audio CD, I get a blue screen of death and nothing I do or have done has fixed the issue. The only solution seems to be a reinstall. Contrast, in turn to Vista, which has not kept its promise, possibly a instance of why a company should stick to its core business and not stray too far from it – in other words, after all these years, I would have expected Microsoft to have built an excellent Operating System. This was not the case, and in the meantime, Microsoft has diverted its attention into hardware, gaming consoles, and what not.

2. OpenOffice

This free and open-source office or productivity suite has improved leaps and bounds. The greatest advancement for me was when some of the Excel worksheets I had devised for Personal Finance could be loaded and all the dynamic charts could be updated within OpenOffice. To date, OpenOffice is still being regularly updated. It is a power-house of a suite.

3. Ruby and Ruby on Rails

Ruby is my favourite language and has been for a few years too. It is truly object-oriented, makes you feel your intelligence is treasured, puts immense power into your hands because of meta-programming, and is therefore a fantastic tool for prototyping. It has Japanese elegance, together with extreme beauty. Who would have thought one could say this of a programming language? Thanks go to Yukihiro Matsumoto San, alias Matz!

Ruby on Rails, in turn, is the absolute best framework for Rapid Web Applications building. Credits here go to David Heinemeier Hansson.

2008 is the year that the vendors in the Industry have rallied to bring their commercial endeavours for Ruby and Rails to fruition:

This comes a few years after the thought leaders who have understood and adopted Ruby and Ruby on Rails. A few more years and mass adoption will be a reality because 2008 is the year the vendors of the industry are proposing their solutions. Many companies, however, lag behind.

Back to our subject at hand: thanks to Mozilla and the whole team of contributors worldwide for making this a possibility.

I am now going to exit this 2.0.0.14 version and launch Firefox 3 with all the speed enhancements of the new Gecko rendering engine. As usual, I will be blinding fast. See if you can catch up!

Fabiàn Rodriguez from Canonical provided us with DVDs and CDs of Ubuntu Linux 7.04. Etienne was another colleague from Canonical I met and talked to. I asked him about the opportunities of working for Canonical.

I first tried a 32-bit version Live CD on my laptop and it worked first time. A Live CD does not need installation so you can give the OS a try before installing it. I have used Kubuntu before and I like KDE so I was expecting to be disappointed with the default Gnome desktop, but was I surprised. Gnome has really come a long way. It felt good. Fabiàn said that on install I could still try Kubuntu – it’s all on the DVD. He also gave me a 64-bit version of Ubuntu and I’ve tried it and it’s really blazing fast on my AMD Turion 64 x2. There was no glitch whatsoever.

My favorite browser, Firefox is already available by default. OpenOffice 2.2 is there too. As for email, the default is Evolution Mail whereas I use Mozilla’s fantastically stable Thunderbird (try the latest one, it’s faster).

It was great to see Luis again whom I had met before at the MLUG, and we talked quite a lot about open source software like tinyERP and Ubuntu. Luis knows his way around Linux. He showed me the ruggedest laptop ever – isn’t it, Luis?

We had free wi-fi from the excellent île-sans-fil project. It worked really well. Luis’s connection seemed stronger. He explained that there was some kind on antenna on the side of his screen, which made me think of hacking my wireless card with some wire extension and do the same. We laughed a lot about how solid his laptop was – it’s like concrete – it’s got a metal screen shield, some super screen antenna, polymer gels for protecting the HDD from shocks and vibrations and probably some kind of nuclear power.

I couldn’t try the Desktop effects because I needed special drivers for my ATI video chipset, but Luis’s nuclear bunker of a laptop worked straight away. He was taunting me with it.

I probably told Luis “I’m so happy this works” about a thousand times because that’s how I felt seeing the Live CD Ubuntu Linux on my laptop. Last time I tried I think I had a badly burnt DVD image so I was stuck at the boot screen. This time…perfection.

So I’d like to extend my thanks to:

Fabiàn Rodriguez – thanks a million Fabiàn – you’re great. Etienne and other Canonical employees present today. FACiL and the Quebec Ubuntu Local Community team.

Michael Lenczner and all the île-sans-fil team and volunteers who are working hard and doing a tremendous job at bringing free high-quality wi-fi hotspots throughout Montreal.

All the other people present and who took some time to chat, Cyril, Franco, Hans, the three Vincents, etc…

Linus Torvalds, Eric Stallman, Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, the Debian people and all other volunteers and contributors.

The whole of the Ubuntu community, as well as Canonical.

And last but not least:

A huge thank you to you, Mr. Mark Shuttleworth. You are a true genius and benefactor to ship Ubuntu freely around the world and give free support in the spirit of the African Ubuntu ideology.

Fantasties – Dankie!

Based on more information provided to me during a recent meeting with Raj Vadavia (CEO) and Thomas Fedoryak (Chief Strategic Officer) of Sygenics, I have updated the description of the fantastic Sygenics Evolution technology today so that it portrays the technology more accurately. Thanks to Thomas Fedoryak for the more accurate wording. Josh – 17th of May.

3. DARWIN by Evonium Inc. – Kingsley and Alden Woodward

John set the tone for the presentation as usual and practised his Bruce Buffer John McCarthy impersonation. He also posed for a photograph in a cheeky Wasnot@BarCampbutgotaT-ShirtNaNaNa stance.

Note to self: the UFC will be in Montreal later this year. Attend. Mixed Martial Arts events have done a lot to change how I think about Martial Arts in general.

The Evonium team demonstrated DARWIN, a modular and customizable framework for Information Management. The demonstration itself at DemoCampMontreal1 showed just a small subset of DARWIN’s possibilities, focusing on the ease of adding new data within the framework and updating a form to access the contents.

The real Wow factor here is Alden Woodward mentioning that DARWIN could evolve with your business process. Now, this statement seems innocuous like this, but what if you factor in that you can re-engineer your business process, easily and rapidly customize your whole Information Systems within and with DARWIN to reflect this while the system is still running LIVE?

A nearly real-time evolutive Business Information System – that’s nothing less than the grail of Business agility! Absolutely fantastically impressive, considering that it is time-consuming and sometimes difficult to re-design your Data models, especially if you using a relational DBMS and rewrite your access code. Now, how do you think Evonium achieves so much flexibility within their framework to do that?

Just imagine tracking the efficiency of multiple business processes per business domain to find what works best in each type of business.

The presentation itself could have been geared more towards showing these benefits. It was difficult to grasp the benefits of DARWIN with the demo as I am not familiar with the interface and based on the feedback I heard here and there, many people did not get the message, which is unfortunate as I strongly believe that Evonium have a winner with DARWIN.

DARWIN is applied to Manufacturing and to Science Laboratories and Science Research in addition to Businesses. Kingsley Woodward is the President and CEO of Evonium Inc.

During Question Time, Raj Vadavia popped a question about the underlying technology.

“Don’t you guys work together? PLANTED QUESTION!!!” said John playfully.

But actually, that was the whole point and the subject of the fourth demo, Evolution or Part 2 of my “Wow!” moment.

4. Evolution by Sygenics Corp – Raj Vadavia

Raj Vadavia started by saying how most modern programming languages are object-oriented (like our beloved Ruby) but RDBMS and these languages do not mesh well together.

He then described Evolution, a new technology that frees business logic from being locked into a given data schema, by installing a true real-time dynamic data model directly within Relational DBMS. Raj said that with Evolution, DB administrators need not go down to the level of the relational tables to modify them. Instead, modifications are initiated from a higher level through an API, and instantly reflected in real-time by the adaptive (or ‘plastic’) Evolution data model. Raj added that Evolution was the result of more than four years of research and development and that the technology is patent-pending. Sygenics Corp, the makers of Evolution, found out during their research that RDBMS and their fixed schema models are actually a bottleneck in data-centric business systems.

Raj said that Evolution uses mathematics, more precisely Set Theory, to manipulate the data. Woah! I was transfixed by the idea. Raj continued to speak about Evolution while looking at me but his words had become a blur as I was lost in metaphysics territory. Could it be that there are other things we take for granted within either our Information Systems and the Businesses they integrate into and that applying a new mathematical model could open up amazing optimization opportunities?

From Sygenics’ website:

The fixed table schema that are used by relational databases are the core bottleneck in the development, lifecycle and flexibility of any data-centric software solution. These fixed schema are the weakest link because they were never intended to change or adapt once activated.

Suddenly, a loud booming voice resonated throughout the SAT room.

“Raaaaj?… Raaaaaaaaj?……”.

OhmigodTheSATisHauntedThere’sAGhostInTheMachine!!?!!

“Raj, it’s your subconscious…. You have five minutes left for your demo.”

It was John, of course.

Evolution dynamically modifies its own data structure (within your relational DB, like Oracle and MS-SQL) without having to manually re-tool access routines or migrate existing data to a new schema. This enables fast reconfigurable data models without having to stop your production system, and is the reason why Evonium’s DARWIN can enable you to dynamically rewire your business logic as your business process changes.

If I were an investor looking for innovative Business Information Systems opportunities that night at DemoCampMontreal1, this is where I’d put my money: Sygenics’ Evolution and Evonium’s DARWIN framework. Their concepts and technologies made my mind reel for a few days.

Interface Ruby and Ruby on Rails with these two technologies and you have the core of the ultimate flexible full-stack Business Information Architecture. Couple this with a Cognos and Google Analytics type of analysis and reporting and you have a fantastic arsenal to track different business processes’ efficiencies so as to select the best one based on practical results.

The presentation also suffered from the ‘unfamiliarity with the interface’ phenomenon, but it did show that there was no need to go down to the level of the relational database schema for modifications. But here again, I cannot help but wonder whether the message did get across.

Nevertheless, I’m totally amazed by Evolution. Revolutionary as the website says and I’m inclined to believe it.

Raj Vadavia is the CEO and majority shareholder of Sygenics.

Notes:
- Always distinguish form from content. The two presentations above might have been better formulated with respect to conveying the benefits to the audience, but the technologies and concepts beneath were the most impressive that night and probably the most impressive I’ve seen in the past two years as I’ve mentioned in Part 1.

5. ilovetoplay.com – Marc Chriqui

Marc Chriqui’s stated goal for ilovetoplay.com is to help make people fit, which is a laudable initiative. His demonstration showed the website which helps people find partners for sports activities. He showed the fields within the user profiles and also how photos are added within the site.

Marc also found a creative way of using his 15 minutes of DemoCampMontreal1. After the main presentation, he asked the audience feedback about the marketing aspect for the website and showed us an image with a teasing tag-line.

Tamu, who was sitting in the row behind me, voiced some valid observations about how it can get tiring for people who do not look like the model to see yet another photo not representative of themselves, but Marc replied “You don’t want to be fit?” which created a ripple of laughter in the audience, effectively drowning Tamu’s message.

Well, it’s a good idea to ask for feedback at DemoCamp. Some audience members are even willing to give you that feedback for free, so you might as well listen carefully to their contributions. Another audience member also gave Marc feedback, and John added his perspective too – all relevant.

Note:
- You can use DemoCampMontreal to get feedback on your product and marketing. But make sure you lend an attentive ear if you do get it.

Wrap-up

John announced that the DemoCampMontreal1 team would go to the Ste. Elizabeth afterwards. Then Fred and Simon took turns with the microphone to thank all parties involved and inform people about upcoming events.

Post-demo conversations

Heri and I had talked a little in between demos and I had also caught up with John who said he was away for a while since CUSEC but came back to Montreal. After the wrap-up, I greeted Robin and asked him whether he was going to attend the first Mashpit in Montreal, and he said he’d most probably be there.

I also met Carl Mercier who is a successful serial entrepreneur based in Montreal. Carl, Heri and I swapped business cards spent quite a fair amount of time happily discussing the Montreal Tech Scene. Carl’s business card is a sight to behold – classy and beautiful.

After this, I checked with John whether he was going to the Ste-Elizabeth and then I moved near the bar where there were still a handful of persons around chatting.

Silicon Valley North

I wanted to meet Austin Hill and he was there generously giving the Evonium team and Raj Vadavia feedback on the presentations from his perspective as a VC and Angel investor. Alden, Kingsley and Raj were attentive and open to the feedback. Raj proposed that Austin try to apply Evolution to the problem of sifting and sorting email messages as Austin had mentioned this as an example of a real-world problem that a VC or investor could easily relate to and which would have been advantageous to demonstrate to make the presentations more effective.

I didn’t have the opportunity of speaking to either Raj Vadavia or Alden and Kingsley Woodward about their technology but I did talk to Austin. I asked him about Silicon Valley and the state of the Tech Scene in Toronto and Montreal. Austin mentioned that SV has a lot to do with the mindset but that it was also a question of economics. He said that Toronto is currently ahead of Montreal in terms of activity in the Tech scene, but that he is convinced that Montreal has the potential of becoming the next best SV-North.

That was precisely what I wanted to hear. And with the kind involvement that Austin has in the community, I have no doubt that his words are becoming a reality.

We talked about my background and the Python-wrangler video. Austin said that they were tracking views both on Youtube and from his blog. His blog is an absolute must-read and is a gateway I found when I looked for people in the Montreal Tech community online.

Austin was very approachable and generous with his time, information and even will to help me connect with other people. Generous and friendly, just as I had imagined him from reading his blog and it was a pleasure to talk to him. If SV has Reid Hoffman, Montreal has Austin Hill.

Happiness has a reddish hue

After speaking with Austin, I talked to David Fugère and he was enthusiastic about Ruby on Rails’ support for REST and web services APIs. Aha! Code Genome is using Ruby and Ruby On Rails. That may well be why David is smiling all the time. Ruby and RoR make happy coders and happy businesses.

Sébastien Pierre said goodbye, but I caught up again with him at the metro, and we talked about Software Engineering in France. I told him about INSA de Rennes, where I did my degree. We spoke of Sugar, which I saw him demonstrate at DemoCampCUSEC1, and of the Recent Changes Camp, or RoCoCo, which is forthcoming in Montreal. This will definitely be an event to attend.

The many faces of the DemoCamp format

DemoCampMontreal1 was astonishing for me. Evolution was especially superb as a singularly original enabling technology and concept which in turns makes Evonium’s DARWIN a reality. I saw that a DemoCamp was not just a meeting among geeks but also an avenue to pitch your startup to willing investors since Austin Hill was present and Tom Sweeney of Garage Technology Ventures Canada was there too, a way to get feedback and advice on your product, marketing, an opportunity to hone your presentation skills and meet smart people and even probable partners. A DemoCamp is all these things simultaneously.

Thanks to Fred for getting me involved, Simon and John and all those who helped with the event and thanks to all those who took some of their precious time to chat, especially Heri, Carl, John, Austin, David and Sébastien. I couldn’t talk to everybody but I would have loved to talk to Simon about his recent trip to Norway, his work for Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux distribution and his omelette-engineering demo, and I would have asked Ben about the passion podcast and whether he had had submissions. I will gladly see you all next time.

Memorable quotes

“Let get it on!” – John (imitating Bruce Buffer UFC referee, John McCarthy)
“Julie, I hadn’t seen you for a while – I liked it that way.”- John (to Julie)
“Mon français n’est pas très bien aujourd’hui.” – John
“Planted question!” – John
“Raaaaj? Raaaaaj, it’s your subconscious. You have 5 minutes left” – John (to Raj Vadavia)

“80% de notre objectif est atteint…on avait besoin d’un deadline” – Thierry Poitras

“I want people to get fit.” – Marc Chriqui (on his objective for the presentation)

“It was a metaphor!” – Simon (about his omelette engineering demo)

“We use mathematics to manipulate the data.” – Raj Vadavia

I reached La Bande Passante about a quarter of an hour after 7pm and was greeted at the door by Robin Millette. I knew Robin virtually from the MLUG mailing list and it was good to see him in person. There were already about 10 members of the MLUG around the table, almost all of them with their laptops connected to the net.

People were going around introducing themselves to the group, and Robin graciously handed me a chair and I then took a seat in between Denny, who has recently joined the mailing list, and Luis.

Robin hopped into a kind of dentist an optometrist’s chair (I should have noticed – it’s not a reclining seat), which was quite fun, and we spoke about the MLUG, FACIL, and the Montreal Tech League. We had an interesting conversation about information-sharing, news aggregation, microformats and Firefox 3, which will be an information broker.

I mentioned to him how our content online now is getting more and more cluttered with icons, and that these should really be meta information and thus be captured and treated by the browser.

I told him about Operator, a Firefox extension which helps work with microformats where they are available.

Denny works in Finance for Desjardins Securities and so I spoke to him about my interests about Finance, and why I was plotting charts at different resolutions as mentioned in the previous post namely to test two things, one of which is the Elliott wave theory. The other one has to do with Nicolas Darvas.

Denny also had PC Linux OS 2007 running on his laptop, and he learned about Beryl on the spot with a little help from Jeremy and Luis, as PCLinux OS comes pre-configured with it and with additional GUI goodies.

Luis and I also spoke about where he’s currently working, CN. They have a huge IT department. Luis was very knowledgeable about Linux and was occasionally helping out a member on his right.

The introductions were interspersed with impromptu chats about Linux, of course, and thus we took longer than one could imagine. In the meantime, more people were coming in. I believe we were about 15 attendants.

For my introduction, I talked about my professional background, open-source involvement history and where I come from.

Leslie, whom I advised to try Ruby on Rails on the mailing list, was present too and it was nice to meet him in person. We talked about our respective professional backgrounds. Leslie was involved in some big projects with ERPs, namely Baan.

I asked Jeremy about his choice of Drupal for the new MLUG website, which is now online.

We were treated to a demo of Linutop by Martin-Eric Racine who came in from Finland to demo his product on the projection screen. He’s a contributor to both Debian and Ubuntu.

I asked Robin to tell me more about Koumbit, and he pointed me to a brochure on the table. Since I had already visited their website before by following a link through Robin’s web presence, it was better to discuss it some more with Robin and Marco.

And so we headed downstairs, and the three of us had a great conversation about Koumbit, its purpose, and its ‘Open Business Model’. The Koumbit team are doing great things and they specialize on Drupal and the open-source AlternC for multi-site management. Moreover, the Koumbit team contribute back to the open-source community by working on AlternC itself. That is to be commended.

They also help out whenever they can by working with non-profits, so if you need effective full-blown content-management systems or website with additional features, make sure you check them out. Your investment will also help fund non-profit organizations.

Marco sent me a document made by someone who studied the Koumbit model for a year with a sociological perspective. This was another incidence of synchronicity, as the very same day, I was looking at sociological perspectives on the Silicon Valley phenomenon.

Marco told me to try and attend a Koumbit meeting and I probably will soon. Marco and I talked a little about the current Montreal Tech Scene and collaborative projects. He mentioned RoCoCoCamp and expressed his wish that anglophone and francophone people in the local tech scene work more together, something to which I can only agree as it has been on my mind for the past two weeks. Robin said that we would probably do other MLUG meetings soon.

Just before I left, I noticed that there were still a group of members upstairs although we were way past the ending time for the meeting. I conducted a surprise poll and about 80% of the users – an overwhelming majority – were using Canonical’s Ubuntu or some variant thereof. Some used Gentoo, and some mentioned Debian (Ubuntu is based on Debian) and Leslie was trying Fedora.

I made my exit into the Montreal night and headed to metro Crémazie to go back home.

It was a pleasure to meet some of the members in person and to learn about PCLinux OS, Koumbit, Drupal and see the absolutely amazing Beryl in live action.