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The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) is pleased to invite Canadian exporters to participate in the ICT Mexico Preparation Program 2011-12. Through this program, Canadian information and communication technology (ICT) companies that wish to explore opportunities in Mexico will be provided with the following services.

* A preliminary analysis of each company’s profile and their prospects in Mexico.
* Company-specific in-depth market analysis prepared by an in-market industry consultant.
* Based on each study results, companies will be invited to join a business mission to Mexico in February 2012, which includes one-to-one matchmaking meetings with potential customers, distributors and more.

Companies participating in this program are expected to invest necessary time and resources to work with the consultant and the Trade Commissioner Service (TCS) in Mexico in order to achieve a valuable market report. Canadian government trade commissioners will provide individual follow-up via telephone conference call and a face-to-face, when possible.

Due date to register to the program is July 15, 2011. Interested companies should contact Guillermo Larios as soon as possible to obtain a registration form as space is limited and preference will be accorded to early applicants. All proposals should comply with the TCS policy for Canadian content and market readiness for the ICT sector as indicated by DFAIT Regional Offices.

From the Accelerate Okanagan blog:   The “Business Clinic” service for Okanagan technology companies has officially launched. This free service forms part of Accelerate Okanagan’s offering for entrepreneurs and technology companies looking to start, accelerate and grow. Priority access to the clinics will be given to program clients and member companies of Accelerate Okanagan.

The inaugural Legal Business Clinic was presented July 4 by Pushor Mitchell Lawyers. The first Financial Business Clinic took place July 8 with BDO Dunwoody. Accelerate Okanagan’s Business Clinic initiative is designed to offer access to expertise for growth companies through “drop-in clinics” delivered by partners, who are professional service providers offering free expert advice and guidance on specific legal, financial and HR challenges faced by technology companies and entrepreneurs.

On the financial side, some of these challenges might include:

• Business structure and related reporting and tax implications
• Business plan preparation and the financial components
• Understanding financial statements: Balance sheet; Income statement; Cash flow statement; Retained earnings
• Chart of Accounts
• Forecasting
• Budgeting
• Bringing in investors
• Shareholder loans
• Compensation: Salary vs. Dividends
• Equipment: Buy vs. lease.

On the legal side, they could include:

• Basic Legal Issues and Documents for Early Stage Ventures
• Incorporation
• Corporate Due Diligence
• Confidentiality, Non-Circumvention and Protection of Corporate Interests Agreements
• Organizing and Structuring your Venture
• Beta and End User Licensing
• Licensing Considerations
• Software Support Agreements
• Intellectual Property
• Disclaimer Information
• Exit Strategy Requirements.

Together with access to in-house Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, Business Clinics form part of Accelerate Okanagan’s overall Expert Service that provides support to technology companies from experienced, successful business professionals who work hands-on with entrepreneurs to share advice, solve problems, and assist clients identify and overcome hurdles to growth.

Professional services firms that have signed on to deliver Business Clinics include:

Law firms – Pushor Mitchell and Farris, Vaughn, Wills & Murphy
Financial services firms – BDO Dunwoody, Grant Thornton and KPMG
HR firms – Smithson Employment Law and Love HR.

All of these service provider partners join Accelerate Okanagan in their commitment to assisting entrepreneurs grow and achieve their full potential. For further information about this service, please visit the Accelerate Okanagan website or contact Martin at 250.870.9028. To schedule your participation at a financial, legal or HR Business Clinic, contact Kathryn at 250.870.9028.

Majesco Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Consumer Products and Bagdasarian Productions have announced plans to release the Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked video game, which is based on the third installment of the blockbuster animated feature film franchise, coming to theatres this December 16^th.

Scheduled to launch this November, the game is currently in development at Behaviour Interactive and lets players sing and dance along with the film’s stars Alvin, Simon, Theodore and The Chipettes (Brittany, Eleanor and Jeanette), in an immersive motion-based experience. The Kinect™ for Xbox 360^® version tracks full body dance moves as players control their Chipmunk on stage, and plays back their “Alvin-ized” voice as they sing along. The game will also be available for both the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS.

“The Alvin brand has proven to be evergreen with universal awareness and growing appeal,” said Jesse Sutton, CEO, Majesco Entertainment. “The extensive customization and combination of dancing and singing to contagious Chipmunk music will deliver a full-featured experience based on the upcoming movie that the whole family can enjoy together.”

“This game will bring fans even closer to the fun and music of Alvin and the Chipmunks by taking full advantage of the Kinect for Xbox 360,” said Gary Rosenfeld, Senior Vice President, New Media for Fox Consumer Products. “It’s going to be the perfect complement to the upcoming film and we know that fans are going to love it.”

The forthcoming Alvin and the Chipmunks movie finds the trio vacationing aboard a luxury cruise liner, turning it into their personal playground until they become ‘chipwrecked’ on a remote island. The Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked video game continues the story with an around-the-world journey that has The Chipmunks visiting six tropical locations inspired by the movie. Hear your voice “Alvin-ized” when you sing along with the game and unleash your “Munk Power” to perform ultra-cool dance moves.

The Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked video game features include:

• Sing and dance as any of The Chipmunks and The Chipettes — Alvin, Simon, Theodore, Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor.
• Perform more than 50 different dance moves to electrify the crowd with your on screen performance.
• Customize your Chipmunk before you hit the stage by choosing from a huge range of styles and accessories.
• Experience the movie in Story Mode with environments inspired by the film.
• Hear your voice “Alvin-ized” during your on-stage performance using the Kinect for Xbox 360.

On Sunday, August 7th, and in conjunction with SIGGRAPH 2011, Autodesk will be hosting the Autodesk Student Experience Event, a series of workshops and presentations exclusively for students who are pursuing their CG dreams. This full day of events will feature classes, one-on-one feedback sessions with Autodesk technology experts, a seminar from Carlos Baena of Animation Mentor and a keynote presentation by Duncan Brinsmead, principal scientist at Autodesk.

The workshops and presentations will be held at the Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel beginning at 9am and running throughout the day until 5pm. There will be a two networking reception held following the conclusion of the day’s events.

The sessions will focus on skill set improvement using Autodesk 3D animation tools such as Autodesk^® Maya^®, Autodesk^® 3ds Max^® and Autodesk^® Softimage^® software. Pre-registration is highly recommended, and you can follow Jennifer Goldfinch on Twitter for more information.

Autodesk Application Engineers & AREA Bloggers will be on site during the event, and you are invited to come and chat with them about your latest project, product tips & tricks, industry questions and more. No registration required for this portion of the day. Gary M. Davis (3ds Max), Louis Marcoux (3ds Max), Lee Fraser (Maya) and Mark Schoennagel (Softimage) will be available to answer your questions about 3ds Max, Maya and Softimage.

Mobilicity has named Kathryn Tom as its CEO Blogger as the wireless company prepares to kick off its “Prove It To You” cross-Canada tour later this week.

As CEO Blogger, Tom, a 23-year-old Biomedical graduate from Markham, will be part of a small Mobilicity team that will document and share CEO Dave Dobbin’s two-week journey across Canada via social media. In addition to winning the trip, Tom will also receive a Mobilicity handset of her choice with a year of unlimited talk, text and data service, plus a 16 GB BlackBerry PlayBook.

The tour, which begins in Toronto on  July 14th, will put the spotlight on the people and landmarks Dobbin meets as he ventures across the nation, as well as Mobilicity’s affordable, national coverage – only 20-cents flat per minute outside of the company’s unlimited coverage zones in Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. The tour will end in Vancouver on July 27th.

Tom won the Mobilicity CEO Blogger Contest after recently submitting a one-minute Facebook video on what makes her the ideal candidate for the role. Her entertaining submission shows a social-media-obsessed Tom blogging around town – inside a shopping cart, on the subway, in a science lab, on the roof of her house – even in a tree.

“We received some fantastic submissions; choosing just one video wasn’t easy,” said Dobbin. “Kathryn’s video showcases her creativity, sense of humour and passion for mobile communications. We are confident she will make an outstanding blogger and a welcome addition to our tour.”

Tom said she entered the contest to learn about the wireless business, see the country and share her travels in an exciting new way.

“Gone are the days when a road trip meant paper maps and cassette tapes,” Tom said. “I know this mission across our nation will bring new sights and memories that I can instantly share with the world.”

Upon arriving in each of Mobilicity’s five unlimited markets, Dobbin will host exclusive Customer Appreciation events to thank existing customers for their ongoing support and welcome new customers to Mobilicity. The Customer Appreciation events will feature $0 BlackBerry smartphones, special offers, free food and giveaways.

Growing security and compliance concerns signal big growth in the awareness and adoption of SIEM solutions in the coming year, according to a recent Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Vendor Landscape report published by Info-Tech Research Group.

“As security and compliance concerns grow with each new regulation, each failed audit and each publicized security breach, SIEM will finally begin to draw broader attention in the coming year,” said James Quin, Lead Research Analyst for Info-Tech Research Group. “Though the space is mostly populated by smaller players, some larger players are already marketing SIEM solutions and the recent acquisition of market-leader ArcSight by HP is a possible precursor of greater consolidation to come.”

The report, titled “Security Information and Event Management: Simplify Compliance and IT Risk Management with SIEM Tools,” lists Q1 Labs (USA), SenSage (USA) and Symantec (USA) as Champions with Nitro Security (USA) earning the Innovation Award.

NitroSecurity’s NitroView ESM offering garnered top product performance scores across the board and is listed at the second lowest price point of the solutions evaluated in the report. It is noted as one of the most feature-rich solutions and offers truly comprehensive and forward-looking correlation capabilities.

Symantec is the Value Award winner and a Champion in the report. According to Info-Tech Research Group, they offer a solid product backed by a solid vendor committed to the security space and at an attractive price point. The report recommends Symantec’s solution for organizations with generic SIEM needs.

SenSage and Q1 Labs also showed well in the evaluation and were listed as Champions. SenSage is one of the smallest vendors in the space, but makes up for it with their business intelligence like capabilities for security data. Q1 Labs is the largest independent player in the space and offers the broadest and most comprehensive set of reporting capabilities of any other vendor in the report. Info-Tech notes that Q1 has the potential to be looked on as a prospective target for acquisition by some of the big security vendors looking to get into the space as the demand for SIEM builds.

CONTAX Inc. introduces Extreme Makeover: ERP Edition, a promotional contest where companies can enter and one will win a free business software implementation of SAP® Business All-in-One. To enter the contest, organizations must submit an entry form online stating why their company needs a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution in 500 words or less. To qualify for this contest, companies must be owned and operated in the United States or Canada and have revenue of less than $250 million in the last fiscal year.

CONTAX is giving away a free implementation of SAP Business All-in-One to promote this software solution to the mid-market. The software and implementation services for this contest have an estimated retail value up to $1,000,000 USD. SAP Business All-in-One is a comprehensive, proven solution with preconfigured, industry-specific business processes to enable predictable and affordable implementations. Optimized for midsize companies, SAP Business All-in-One has the flexibility to adapt and extend as a business evolves and grows.

“This solution was made for the midmarket, and we believe SAP truly understands the challenges that midsize companies face,” said Michael Pearson, president, CONTAX. “Many of our clients deal with tier-one retailers, and when they can walk into a meeting and say, ‘We run SAP,’ it’s a game changer for them. As an SAP channel partner, we understand the unique challenges that small businesses and midsize companies face, so we can better adapt our products and provide more tailored solutions to meet their needs.”

The Extreme Makeover: ERP Edition contest closes on September 30, 2011 and entries will only be accepted online. Once all the written statements have been reviewed, five finalists will be selected and interviewed. A winner will be selected from the five finalists and announced on October 31, 2011. Visit the contest page to enter the CONTAX Extreme Makeover: ERP Edition contest or for more information and the official rules.

Kestrel TSCM is well positioned to hunt in a complex signal environment, combating corporate economic espionage, organized crime and the loss of competitive edge due to the theft or compromise of sensitive information. When this new technology is combined with a formal TSB recommended TSCM program, eavesdropping and other forms of compromise are minimized, maximizing the overall security profile of your facility or business environment.

OpenText subsidiary Metastorm has announced the release of Version 9.1 of the Metastorm BPM^®software suite, Version 9.0 of Metastorm Smart Business Workspace and Metastorm’s new Business Performance Intelligence Dashboards.

Key features include:

• Enhanced Social BPM capabilities that help to facilitate collaborative process design and instant collaboration on specific work items for faster, improved resolution
• Ability to find colleagues fast with individual user profiles searchable by user’s skills
• Enhanced design features that support the development of more dynamic applications for improved usability, higher user productivity and rapid global deployment
• New Metastorm Business Performance Intelligence Dashboards that deliver dynamic and easily personalized graphical dashboards to facilitate meaningful data analysis for informed decision-making across the Metastorm Business Transformation Platform

Metastorm BPM is recognized by the top industry analyst firms and by its customers as a leading technology for business process management due to the breadth and depth of its functionality. The new capabilities in this release enable organizations to take the lessons learned from social media and apply them to business processes – allowing organizations to drive greater business productivity and improvement.

These new product enhancements help organizations successfully implement business process improvement initiatives by empowering users to become more engaged and productive. Metastorm’s social collaboration tools provide businesses with a highly personalized workspace and unparalleled access to top contributors, enabling them to drive innovation and increase collaboration and improve efficiency among employees. These tools help employees find other people within their organization with specific skill sets required to help them complete their work. Companies can also route work to the most appropriate employee based on individual skills and workload – ensuring the most cost-effective strategy for work allocation.

“Our latest versions of Metastorm BPM and Metastorm Smart Business Workspace apply the concepts of connecting today’s knowledge workers by leveraging social networking and social collaboration tools in a way that offers a highly personalized user experience. This results in faster, easier access to information anytime and anywhere,” said Greg Carter, chief technology officer and executive vice president of Metastorm. “The addition of the Metastorm Business Process Intelligence dashboards further strengthens our ability to offer our customers the resources to make smart, informed business decisions and drive meaningful change across the enterprise.”

“The latest release of Metastorm BPM and Metastorm Smart Business Workspace and addition of the Metastorm Business Process Intelligence dashboards confirms Metastorm’s commitment to investing in product innovation, exploring new solutions and the ability to make great strides to achieve our product roadmap post-merger with OpenText,” said Robert Caldwell, general manager of the Metastorm business unit at OpenText. “We are excited to offer our customers these enhanced solutions to help them achieve their business goals and vision.”

OpenText Metastorm offers a complete business transformation platform powered by its market-leading software for enterprise and business architecture, business process analysis, and business process management. The Metastorm platform helps organizations close the gap between strategy and execution and gain the visibility, planning, management, agility and insight needed to make the right business improvements. With Metastorm, OpenText offers the most comprehensive platform for change for an organization – from the strategy and goals that drive the business, to the day-to-day systems, processes and people who run it, to the content needed to make the best business decisions.

Mitec Telecom Inc. announced today that the company has been selected to participate in the newest phase of the Kativik Regional Government’s infrastructure development program by supplying components to support network infrastructure and services in the Inuit villages of Nunavik, the northernmost region of Quebec.  Financial contributors to this phase of the regional infrastructure development program are Industry Canada, the government of Québec, Telesat and the KRG. Deliveries are expected to take place in Q2, fiscal 2012.

Mitec’s VSAT division will be involved in this build-out by providing its satellite network infrastructure components, which are the backbone for communications in rural areas.

“We are pleased that the KRG has selected Mitec to participate in this program and look forward to exploring ways to work with Nunavik villages and other communities in Canada to facilitate their communications requirements with our robust product line”, commented Jeffrey Mandel, Mitec’s President and CEO.