Montreal Start Up

Last week I was speaking at the Interfaces Mobilité event and two trends quickly became apparent: (1) people are fed up with Byzantine and expensive Cellco pricing schemes and (2) they long for carriers to open up their platforms to developers and start-ups. Nothing new here under the Canadian sun.

What is new however, is that local wireless developers have decided to get together to start sharing knowledge about the field and to explore the possibilities offered by initiatives such as Android and OpenMoko, as well as by dual mode (cell + Wi-Fi) smart phones such as the iPhone. I’m excited because when local web developers started to network more formally about 18 months ago, it lead to the creation of quite a few startups and attracted a fair amount of resources (human and financial) to the scene. Hopefully, we can replicate that success with wireless, a field long overdue for a little disruptive innovation.

So if you’re interested in designing or coding mobile applications, or even just intrigued about some of the new open platforms, stop by Station-C this Friday at 17:30. As usual, Heri has all the info up on Montreal Tech Watch.

Finally, what about Mobile Monday? I’d previously mentioned Mobile Monday and the fact that one was being organized for Montreal. It was originally scheduled for January, but the current word on the street is that it won’t kick-off until the Spring, which, given the winter we’re having, may never come ☺