By Linda Forrest
Reading yesterday’s post about the role formal education plays in entrepreneurship, I was reminded of an article I read a few months ago about the “real reason women quit engineering.”
In Stemming The Tide: Why Women Leave Engineering, two University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professors report on their survey of over 3,700 women with engineering degrees. They found that just one in four women who had left the field reported doing so to spend more time with family. One third left “because they did not like the workplace climate, their boss or the culture,” while almost half departed due to “working conditions, too much travel, lack of advancement or low salary” (respondents were allowed to check more than one reason). The researchers also found that among women who got engineering degrees but never entered the field, a third made that decision “because of their perceptions of engineering as being inflexible or the engineering workplace culture as being non-supportive of women.” And, unsurprisingly, “Women engineers who were treated in a condescending, patronizing manner, and were belittled and undermined by their supervisors and co-workers were most likely to want to leave their organizations.”
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By Leo Valiquette
It has been a thirty-year journey for Ottawa’s QNX Software Systems, largely under what has jokingly been referred to as “stealth mode.” Last year, the company saw its brand boosted through its acquisition by Research in Motion as the mobile device maker sought out QNX’s expertise in realtime operating systems (RTOS) to help make its Playbook a reality.
But though it remained relatively unknown in its own backyard, QNX had already cemented its market position before RIM came knocking thanks to its own unique customer-centric approach and the support of its previous owner, Harman International. Derek Kuhn, vice-president of sales and marketing, and Sebastien Marineau-Mes, vice-president of engineering, spoke this morning at OCRI’s execTALKS breakfast about how their company has evolved over the years.
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As part of our ongoing series examining the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market, we asked Andrew Fisher, executive vice-president at Wesley Clover, to share his insights on public policy issues and the culture of entrepreneurship. This is the first of his commentaries and we welcome your feedback.
By Andrew Fisher
Businesses in Canada have a lot going for them. From the SR&ED program, to other services provided by Export Development Canada, the Business Development Bank of Canada and DFAIT, Canadian technology companies are certainly not starved for choice compared to most other jurisdictions.
Still, there are tweaks that could be made to improve the system and enable those areas that offer the greatest potential gain for the country as a whole. Nor is a rich buffet of government support and subsidy paid out of the public tax base necessarily a good thing.
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As part of our ongoing series examining the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market, David French, a senior Canadian patent attorney with 35 years of experience, now provides the third of his commentaries on the importance to a company of protecting its Intellectual Property.
By David French
In a previous blog posting, we talked about the importance of having an IP coordinator on the team and how this role fits into an organization. We identified the role of the IP coordinator as including:
- knowing or able to understand all of the issues and requirements in order to ensure that there is good IP hygiene within the firm
- acting as the guardian of the intellectual property within the firm
- understanding what should be done and seeing that things are done on a timely basis
- communicating with outside legal professionals
- being present when your patent lawyer, trademark lawyer, litigation attorney etc. speaks at a meeting, and explaining what was said once the professional has left
- maintaining cost control over your IP expenses
This person was summarized as being your contact with the IP universe, your scout, your guide, your Man Friday in matters IP.
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By Linda Forrest
When Microsoft announced that it had acquired Skype for the tidy sum of $8.5B US, the tech world positively buzzed with questions. (As an aside, the acquisition means good things for all Canadians as the Canada Pension Investment Board is looking at a 3x return on the investment it made in Skype less than two years ago! I just might get a pension yet!)
What would this acquisition mean from a functionality perspective? Was Microsoft, as ZDNet suggested, just trying to head off prospective buyers Google and Facebook? Did Microsoft wildly overpay, as TechCrunch says? Was this a strategic acquisition that will kill Skype so that Microsoft offerings that have similar functionality can dominate the market? Was this purchase, the largest in the company’s history, a good move financially for Microsoft? As the Financial Times asked, does the Skype acquisition provide the “glue” in Microsoft’s multimedia strategy? As Wired succinctly put it, “Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5B; why, exactly?” Does a boon in M&A mean a rebounding US economy?
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