rim and [some hot company] sittin' in a tree

February 15, 2008 under LinkedIn, RIM

Barry alerted me to this blog post, in which the author pines for RIM to purchase LinkedIn.

Social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace have grown in popularity over the past couple of years. They provide a means for people to maintain contact and interact with those that they chose to as well as meet new people with common interests.

It’s fair to say that most of RIM’s Blackberry users are in the business sector, so LinkedIn makes more sense than Facebook or MySpace. Probably the best application of using LinkedIn would be as an external contact manager. Being able to call or email from a centrally managed contact list, like LinkedIn, could prove to be handy. Plaxo would be a candidate to partner with in these regards, too.

The real gotcha would likely come from IT departments who have implemented the Blackberry Enterprise Server to centrally manage and support their Blackberry users via integration with Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino or Novell GroupWise. External contacts coming in from LinkedIn could possibly give CIOs and CTOs many a sleepless night.

A deal with a social networking site like LinkedIn might make sense for RIM’s much smaller consumer market to up the “cool” factor of the Blackberry service with devices like the Curve and Pearl.

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drop the hammer

To provide an update to my last post, it appears that Jim Balsillie may move the Nashville Predators to ‘The Hammer’. Apparently, Balsillie has a lease agreement with Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. I’d prefer the team to be here in Kitchener, but I’m ok with Hamilton; it’s only 60 kilometres away.

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predators on k-w streets?

Jim Balsillie wasn’t able to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins, so he bought the Nashville Predators instead. There’s a good chance that after next year, he’ll relocate the team out of Nashville, to…….who knows? The rumour is that those of us here in K-W will be getting an NHL franchise. It may be plausible and here’s why I think it is.

This area consisting of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge is currently hovering at a population somewhere over 500,000 and is expected to grow by 250,000 over the next 6 years. From the amount of traffic that’s here, I believe it. The universities (UW and Laurier), college (Conestoga) and high-tech companies probably have a lot to do with that. Take into account the other cities within a 90 kilometre radius of the area, like Guelph, Hamilton and London, and you have close to 2 million people – easily able to sustain an NHL team. And you can’t forgot about those in the GTA that face the pain of fruitlessly obtaining elusive Leafs tickets – I’d bet that many would drive the mere 80 kilometres to here to see an NHL game.

K-W is outside of Toronto (barely), Buffalo, Detroit and Ottawa enough that they wouldn’t have to pay “proximity taxes” to those teams.

Corporate luxury boxes can ensure a team’s success. Nashville had a hard time filling their luxury boxes, and this area could easily pick up that slack. The larger companies in the K-W area like RIM and Toyota could easily pick up a a box or twelve. Then there’s all of the other successful high-tech, manufacturing and insurance companies that could potentially purchase boxes: ATS, Dalsa, Agfa, Sybase, ComDev, Manulife, Google, Adobe, Meikle, McAfee, Sunlife, Desire2Learn (crossing my fingers πŸ™‚ ) and many more.

There currently isn’t an NHL-sized arena in the area. The Kitchener Rangers will be moving out of the Aud in the upcoming years to a bigger arena that’s yet-to-be built. The land has been purchased next to the Aud, but I doubt this would be used for both an NHL and OHL team. So perhaps RIM’s recent land purchase in Cambridge may be a sign of things to come. Unless RIM really needs yet another building in addition to the ones they already have on Phillip Street in Waterloo…

In the post-lockout NHL, the small market Canadian teams can now compete with the bigger cities. The salary cap has levelled the playing field, and the Canadian dollar has bounced back in a big way from the doldrums of the late 1990’s – $1 Canadian is currently trading at $0.92 USD and the Loonie is continuing to strengthen. Combine that with good ol’ Canadian passion for hockey, and there’ll be no problem paying the players and staff of an NHL team in K-W.

So if the Predators do move here, and retain the “Predators” name, what would they be called? Kitchener Predators, since Kitchener is the largest of the cities in the area? Waterloo Predators, since RIM is in Waterloo? Cambridge Predators, assuming that the aforementioned recent land purchase near Pinebush Road becomes the home to an arena? Or perhaps area-type names like Kitchener-Waterloo Predators, Technology Triangle Predators or Tri-City Predators?

The Toronto Star outlines possible places for the Nashville Predators to end up. The upcoming years may be quite interesting. Stay tuned…

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so now we're not getting the penguins?

December 16, 2006 under Hockey, NHL, Penguins, RIM

CBC’s reporting that Jim Balsilie has withdrawn his offer to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins. I guess we’re not getting a team here now πŸ™

It appears that the reason that Balsillie walked away from the purchase of the Penguins is because of über-sucky-commissioner Gary Bettman‘s crazy mandates:

Reports suggest part of the reason Balsillie walked away from the sale was his displeasure with league’s mandate to keep the team in Pittsburgh as part of the agreement.

There had been speculation that Balsillie, 45, could try to move the franchise to Hamilton, which is close to his home and RIM’s head office in Waterloo, Ont., if a new arena in Pittsburgh isn’t built.

So Mr. Bettman would prefer to see a team full of young stars, like Sid Crosby, wallow in uncertainty because the city of Pittsburg’s hopes of keeping the Penguins hinges on whether the state government will allow a casino to be built or not.

SARACSM WARNING!
In the event that the Penguins finally have to leave Pittsbugh, I bet good ol’ Gary would love to move the team to hockey-hungry cities like Las Vegas, Kansas City or Oklahoma City. That would be frickin’ brilliant! Hey, it’s working in Phoenix, Florida and Atlanta. And nobody would dare go watch NHL games in Winnipeg and Quebec City anyway.
END SARCASM WARNING!

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it's karma, baby

November 9, 2006 under Blackberry, karma, NTP, Palm, patents, RIM

I’m not a religious zealot, but I do adhere to the notion of karma. I try to live by a “what goes around comes around” ethic, and I feel terrible for enjoying the prospect of NTP getting into hot water. You might remember NTP as the patent holding company that sued RIM a couple of years ago for patent infringement. They settled and life moves on, but it dragged on forever. As an aside…hey RIM, when are the Penguins moving here? πŸ™‚

This week, NTP is suing Palm for patent infringement – here we go again. This might wipe Palm out, should they lose. NTP, in my opinion, contributes nothing to society and the advancement of technology. As such, I was pleased to learn that a software developer is suing NTP for copyright infringement and unjust enrichment. It’s disgusting to see all of this litigation that you can only find in the good ol’ sue-happy US of A. Yet I won’t shed a tear if NTP loses this case and retreats, like the trolling shitsuckers that they are.

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