Edmonton’s Omni Technology Solutions brings CRM integration to the world

Last year, local software company Omni Technology Solutions celebrated its 10th birthday. They’ve had some incredible success during that time, and are well-positioned for future growth. With a focus on customer relationship management integration solutions, they’re probably not a company that you’ve heard of, unless you happen to be a customer. While almost all the leading CRMs are headquartered in Silicon Valley, it's interesting to know that the number one CRM integration platform is developed here in Edmonton! That’s why I reached out to Trevor Poapst, Omni’s Director of Global Marketing, to learn more.

Their core offering, Riva, overcomes the limitations of Outlook CRM plug-ins that need to be installed, configured and managed on each user’s desktop, laptop and mobile device. Instead, Riva gets installed once on a server and transparently syncs CRM address book, calendar, sales and support data to all Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise email clients. Riva is compatible with the very popular Salesforce, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Oracle CRM, SageCRM, Saleslogix and several other leading CRM systems. What’s unique about Riva is that the synchronization all happens server-side, so there are no Outlook plug-ins required.

The company’s second product is called eControl, and it satisfies the need for a simpler, web-based alternative to the native management tools for Microsoft Active Directory, Exchange, Novell GroupWise, eDirectory, SAP and other systems. Though eControl has been designed to be simple enough for non-technical users to use, it is still very powerful, and features full auditing, enhancing compliance with SOX and other regulations. Omni’s customers have used eControl to manage anywhere from 500 to 50,000 user accounts, and a typical deployment takes less than 3 hours.

You’ll notice that both solutions work with Novell’s products, which is really where Omni got started. They’re one of the top three GroupWise developers in the world, and have benefited greatly from participating in the Novell ecosystem. Being focused on Novell hasn’t been without challenges, however. The first was the size of the market. There are far fewer Novell customers than Microsoft customers. In the last year or two however, Omni has successfully expanded into the Microsoft marketplace, and is working hard to continue to grow in that area.

The second challenge is one that Omni continues to deal with. Though the company has always been based here in Edmonton, very few of its customers have been in Canada because GroupWise has traditionally had a stronger following elsewhere. Winning global sales hasn’t been easy. In addition to working with partners, Omni has started to open offices abroad. Offices in Chile and Munich opened late last year, and the company recently closed its first major eControl deal in Chile as a result.

Though reaching the global market is challenging as an Alberta-based company, Trevor wouldn’t have it any other way. The company has received lots of support from the provincial government, and has benefited from having access to a highly trained workforce and relatively low business costs. Trevor also mentioned that Alberta is a great place to raise a family, in part because you don’t have to commute several hours every day. In fact, Omni’s CEO and CTO both bike to work year-round, even in the snow!

Omni just launched version 3.5 of eControl (education customers can save 70% until August 31), as well as its new Riva website. The company is planning its second annual eControl conference in Santiago, Chile. Omni is poised for growth and is looking to expand its partner network, especially now that it can tap into the large Microsoft and CRM partner communities.

It was great talking to Trevor (who is actually working from Mexico this year), and learning more about a successful Edmonton-based software company making significant inroads into the global CRM and identity management markets. I think it’s a fantastic example of the success that companies based here can have, and I wish Omni all the best as they continue to grow. You can follow Omni on Facebook and on Twitter.

Recap: Startup Weekend Edmonton, the first in Canada!

This past weekend was the first Startup Weekend in Canada, held right here in Edmonton! About 30 local developers, designers, and idea people got together at Enterprise Square for the event, organized by Startup Edmonton. As I mentioned last week, Startup Weekend’s mission is to teach entrepreneurship in a fun, interactive way. It’s also a great way to see first-hand the talent that exists in the local tech community.

The weekend got started on Friday evening with the pitches. Anyone with an idea for an application or product was invited to write it down on a flip chart. After all the ideas were collected, each one was given 60 seconds to make an elevator pitch, trying to attract people to the team. When that was done, everyone spread out and slowly but surely teams formed. In the end, six teams came together for the weekend.



The teams starting to form on Friday evening

For all of Saturday and most of Sunday the teams were hard at work on their ideas. There is no required deliverable at the end of Startup Weekend, but each team was working as quickly as possible to get as much done as they could in time for a demo. Startup Weekend forces teams to focus on bringing an idea to life quickly, which is an important skill to have. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but being able to execute on them is much more difficult. Starting with just the seed of an idea and less than two days later having something workable to show to others is incredibly valuable. Another great thing about Startup Weekend is that it provides an opportunity for individuals to work together, even if they had never met before. It’s amazing what can happen when two or more creative people get talking.

As the teams put the final touches on their prototypes on Sunday evening, members of the local tech community started to arrive. The final part of Startup Weekend was the demo, giving teams a chance to show off what they had worked on for the last two days.

Here’s what was built at Startup Weekend Edmonton:

  • HomeCricket, an iPhone application that utilizes Open Data from the City of Edmonton to help you find a house. It shows you assessment information, as well as the nearest police stations, schools, parks, and more.
  • Life Radar, a to-do application for the iPad that uses a points system to motivate you to get things done. Neat app, especially when you consider that no one on the team had ever built an iPad app before!
  • RightPath, a web-based Q & A style app that connects high school students with mentors from the business world. Students ask questions about careers, mentors answer.
  • PaxImperium, a social real-time strategy game for Facebook. With no developers on the team, they focused on a detailed product pitch instead, complete with financial projections.
  • GameGigs, a web-based app that connects game developers, designers, and players. It uses the Twitter API for authentication, which made for an interesting (and challenging) demo!
  • Green Planet, a Facebook-based app (with an iPhone app too) that builds awareness around environmental sustainability. As you complete real-life missions (like replacing light bulbs in your house with energy efficient ones) your virtual planet benefits.

I’m really amazed at what was created in such a short amount of time! The apps were all polished and well-thought out, and while there were some bugs in the demos as expected, every team completed enough to clearly convey their idea. Many of the ideas changed quite a bit from the original pitch on Friday, and it would be interesting to see how they’d change even more if the teams continued working on them. With the Apps4Edmonton competition now underway, I suspect some of the teams may do just that.

There are loose plans for another Startup Weekend in Edmonton, tentatively scheduled for the fall. Stay tuned to Startup Edmonton (and on Twitter) for updates. You can see the rest of my photos from Startup Weekend here.

Congratulations to the Startup Edmonton team and to all the participants for a very fun and successful weekend!

This post originally appeared at MasterMaq's Blog.

Startup Weekend comes to Edmonton

This weekend Edmonton will host an event called Startup Weekend (on ShareEdmonton), which brings together developers, designers, marketers, inventors, investors, and anyone else interested in startups to see what they can build in just 54 hours. Will the next big thing emerge out of Edmonton? Will the community create something small that positively impacts the lives of Edmontonians? Maybe both!

Startup Weekend has happened in dozens of cities around the world. Their goal is to hold 60 events this year, and 100 in 2011. Here’s some background:

Startup Weekend is a non-profit organization based out of Seattle, WA USA. Startup Weekend is a small team of three along with community leaders around the world. Startup Weekend’s primary mission is to be the most valuable and influential organization in startup communities around the world. Startup Weekend doesn’t have to teach entrepreneurship in a boring classroom setting, we model it in a fun, interactive, and results driven way. As a result, we have become one of the leading catalysts for startup creation, co-founder dating, and entrepreneurship education in startup ecosystems around the world.

You can download a one-pager on Startup Edmonton in PDF here.

The way the event works will be somewhat familiar to anyone who has attended a *camp. It starts with the pitch – ideas for new startup ventures. The favorites are selected, and teams of 4 to 10 people are formed to tackle each one. The rest of the weekend is spent trying to build a prototype, demo, or maybe even a finished product!

The Edmonton event, organized by Startup Edmonton, is taking place at Enterprise Square downtown. The weekend kicks off on Friday evening at 6pm, with introductions and idea pitches. Then the real work begins! Here’s what attendees get out of the event:

Startup Weekend provides an unprecedented level of networking, team building, learning, and life changes for its attendees and their communities. Don’t forget that there will be 6-7 meals and drinks provided. There is a reason that most attendees come back for every event – it’s just plain fun and provides amazing opportunities you can’t get anywhere else. Sometimes a company emerges, sometimes one doesn’t, but every time people leave with more experience, insight, knowledge, friends, and resources than they came with.

Startup Weekend should be a lot of fun! Tickets are $99, which includes meals and beverages for the weekend (there are a few available at half price if you hurry). You can follow @StartupEdmonton on Twitter for updates, as well as the #SWEdmonton hashtag. See you there!

Click here to register for Startup Weekend Edmonton!

This post originally appeared at MasterMaq's Blog. 

Zero-touch, web-based virtualization & streaming with Spoon.net

A colleague of mine introduced me to Spoon.net a few weeks ago, and we have been using it for cross-browser testing ever since. Instead of installing every different browser locally, or using full virtual machines or something like that, you can make use of Spoon. Basically, it’s a virtualization layer (though it’s obviously much more complicated than that):

Spoon streaming delivers applications over the web, portals, and desktops over 5 to 20 times faster than traditionally downloaded applications, with no installs or hassles. Spoon streaming works with standard web servers and does not depend on proprietary streaming protocols, device drivers, or network infrastructure. And because Spoon streamed applications execute in an isolated virtual machine environment, they are accessible even on locked down desktops, without administrative privileges, and across operating system variants, including Windows 7.

They have a very ambitious mission: “to make the world's software available instantly, anywhere, on any device.”

I was surprised to find that Spoon had a booth at the TechEd Exhibition Hall, because they have kept a pretty low profile so far. They are planning to launch more officially in the near future. I took the opportunity to record a quick video overview with Lee Murphy, a technical account manager at Spoon:

It’s pretty simple. Go to the Spoon website, and click on an app that you want to run. If it’s the first time you’ve been to Spoon, it’ll install a browser plugin. This only happens once, and doesn’t even require a restart of the browser in most cases. After that, you can just click on an application to run it, instantly!

If you’re a web developer, you have to check out Spoon – it will definitely save you time. Right now it works on Windows machines inside IE, Firefox, and Safari, but they promise that Mac, Chrome, Opera, and support for additional platforms and browsers in on the way.

Tech·Ed North America 2010

Cross-browser testing is just one specific use of Spoon’s technology, of course. In an enterprise setting, you could deploy Spoon to quickly enable your employees to run specific applications, without having to set anything up. You do this using the Spoon Server and Spoon Studio:

The same technology that powers Spoon.net is now available to your organization. Enterprises can provide employees, partners, and vendors with access to the apps they need – instantly, reliably, anywhere – via the web, portals, or directly to desktops. Software publishers can dramatically boost conversion rates, reduce support costs, and enable new SaaS business models.

It’s very interesting technology that I suspect you’ll start to hear much more about!

Recap: Tech·Ed North America 2010 Day 1

I’m in New Orleans at Microsoft’s Tech·Ed conference this week. I’m going to be sharing my experience and some of the cool stuff I learn here and at my own blog.

TechEd kicked off here in New Orleans yesterday, with an opening keynote from Bob Muglia, President of the Server & Tools Business at Microsoft. There are more than 10,000 customers, partners, and staff on-site and I think all of them caught the keynote (they had to setup a few overflow rooms). John and I arrived early to register and quickly chow down some breakfast so that we could lineup for the keynote. Neither of us have sat in the front row before, but we managed to do so yesterday!

Here’s a quick video that John recorded:

The focus of the keynote, which you can watch here, was cloud computing. Some of the highlights  for me included (more info here):

  • The public beta of Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 will start in July.
  • Windows Server AppFabric is now available.
  • The Pivot control for Silverlight 4 will be launched this summer. Pivot is such amazing technology (it utilizes Deep Zoom for some of its magic) and being able to embed it on a web page is going to be awesome.
  • We saw a quick demo of Windows Phone 7, specifically related to integration with SharePoint. The enterprise features look pretty slick, so I hope they can deliver on the consumer experience too. You can see some screencaps from the demo here.
  • It was really interesting to hear from Tony Scott, Microsoft’s CIO, about how they are fully adopting the cloud internally. He said that Microsoft IT is now officially “cloud first”.
  • Also very cool: a video talking about the digital asset management system that Microsoft built for James Cameron and his team for Avatar. Cameron talked about this at D8 too.

Tech·Ed North America 2010

Next up for John and I was the Developer Foundations keynote with Jason Zander. He announced quite a few interesting things for developers, including a new Feature Pack for Visual Studio 2010. Microsoft is going to release Feature Packs in between major releases to continually add functionality to the product. Some of the new stuff that excites me:

  • HTML clipboard support (copy code and paste it into your blog and its ready to go)
  • Search functionality for the Add Reference dialog
  • Tons of code editor improvements, such as entire-line-highlighting, and “tabify/untabify”

Jason also has a great post with links to new platform bits here. In particular, I’m very happy to see that Microsoft is working on Scrum Process Template for TFS 2010.

Throughout the day I explored the TechEd site. I visited the Community Lounge, which is where all the Hands-On Labs take place. I couldn’t resist taking a photo with the Channel9 guy:

Tech·Ed North America 2010

Channel9 was livestreaming all day yesterday, and are doing the same today.

I also visited the Exhibition Hall, full of Microsoft product team representatives, as well as dozens of partners. One of the more interesting things to see was one of the Azure server containers:

Tech·Ed North America 2010

After the day’s sessions were finished, there was a reception in the Exhibition Hall. I made sure to stop by the Windows Phone 7 booth, to check out the prototype:

Tech·Ed North America 2010

I didn’t learn any new details, of course, but it was neat to see the phone in action.

Other thoughts on day 1:

  • As expected, not everything went smoothly. The Internet was down for most of the day, which was really annoying. I always wonder why some innovative company hasn’t come along to revolutionize Internet access for conferences, because it is such a common problem.
  • There were far more unhealthy options available for snacks than healthy options (I saw only a few bananas and oranges, but lots of popcorn, cookies, and Goldfish crackers).

Tech·Ed North America 2010
In between sessions

You can see more of my TechEd photos here, and also at the TechEd group on Flickr.

Biolithic Corporation wins 2010 TEC VenturePrize

Today was the awards luncheon for the 2010 edition of TEC VenturePrize, an Alberta-wide business plan competition. The competition is a great way for entrepreneurs to access professional mentorship, networking, and also provides an opportunity to get some exposure. And speaking as a participant (back in 2006) I can honestly say that you learn so much in such a short period of time!

Today’s host was Ryan Jespersen of Citytv, and our special guests included Annette Trimbee, Deputy Minister, Alberta Advanced Education and Technology, and Mayor Stephen Mandel. Chris Lumb, CEO of TEC Edmonton, also brought greetings. In a statement he said:

“Innovators come first at TEC Edmonton. The cailbre of talent that was showcased today is a reflection of the creativity taking place in our province. The determination to build strong business plans through training, mentoring and finally pitching is what makes Alberta’s entrepreneurs stand above the rest.”

We also heard from Duncan Stewart from Deloitte, and last year’s fast growth winner, Ken Bautista of Seek Your Own Proof. Duncan shared some technology predictions and trends with us, while Ken provided an update on the success that his company has had since winning the competition.

TEC VenturePrize 2010TEC VenturePrize 2010

Dozens of entrepreneurs and students from around the province participated, and it was up to the judges to narrow the field down to three finalists in each category (Fast Growth and Student). The finalists in the fast growth category were:

And in the student category:

  • Alberta Carbon
  • E² Technologies
  • Molecular Tetris Inc.

The winner of the Screeners’ Award of Merit, for a business plan that shows excellent promise, was Innovequity Inc. The winner of the Student Business Plan Award was Alberta Carbon. And the grand prize winner of the Fast Growth Award was Biolithic Corporation. You can read the official announcement of the winners here.

TEC VenturePrize 2010

I had the opportunity to work with Firenest a little on their presentation and elevator pitch, so I was definitely cheering for them. I still think they did a fantastic job. Congratulations to the winners and to all the participants!

You can see the rest of my photos from the event here.

This post originally appeared at MasterMaq's Blog. 

Microsoft TechDays 2010

I’m excited to share the news that TechDays, Microsoft’s training conference for IT professionals and developers, is coming back for a third year! Last year’s tour across Canada was a big success, and based on what I’ve been told, Microsoft has put a lot of effort into ensuring that 2010 is even better. Here are the key announcements:

  • In addition to stops in Vancouver, Toronto, Halifax, Ottawa, Montreal, Winnipeg, and Calgary, TechDays is coming to Edmonton! This decision was made because IT pros and developers in Edmonton said loud and clear that they wanted a local edition of TechDays.
  • Each city will now have a minimum of 50 sessions, which means there’s more content than ever before.
  • A common criticism of TechDays in the past was around the type of content being offered. This year Microsoft is adding a local community track to each city, giving local speakers the chance to submit sessions they want to present. If you want to talk about TDD or something, now you can.
  • Microsoft is also looking to partner with the local tech community, opening up space on the evening of day one for community use.

As an Edmontonian, I’m very happy to see TechDays come to my city. I’m also really pleased to see that Microsoft has heard the community’s feedback on content, and is adding the community track to each city.

The tour kicks off in Vancouver on September 14 and finishes in Calgary on December 15. Early bird tickets (about 50% off the regular price) will be available at the TechDays website in early May.

Microsoft will be sharing more news on TechDays 2010 soon. Be sure to sign up for the MSDN Newsletter (for developers) or the TechNet Newsletter (for IT pros) to keep up-to-date on the latest TechDays news.

Here are the dates and locations for TechDays 2010:

  • Vancouver – September 14/15 at the Vancouver Convention Centre
  • Edmonton – October 5/6 at the Shaw Conference Centre
  • Toronto – October 27/28 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre
  • Halifax – November 2/3 at the World Trade & Convention Centre
  • Ottawa – November 9/10 at the Hampton Inn & Conference Centre
  • Montreal – November 23/24 at the Palais de Congres
  • Winnipeg – December 7/8 at the Winnipeg Convention Centre
  • Calgary – December 14/15 at the Calgary Stampede

City of Edmonton launches open data catalogue

Yesterday the City of Edmonton's IT branch launched the initial release of its Open Data Catalogue at data.edmonton.ca. The catalogue is in a "community preview" phase, which means that the City may make breaking changes. Currently there are 12 data sets available to developers, from the locations of historical buildings to upcoming road closures.

The catalogue runs on Microsoft's Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI) platform, an open source project that runs in the cloud atop Windows Azure. Edmonton is the first municipality in North America to deploy OGDI.

Congrats to the City of Edmonton on bringing open data to Edmonton!

You can read more in my post Open Data comes to Edmonton.

UXCamp Edmonton - July 18th

Edmonton’s first UXCamp is being held on Saturday! Organized by Cam Linke of BarCamp fame, Jess McMullin from nForm, and Marc Brisbourne, an instructor with MacEwan’s Design Studies program, UXCamp is a free, one-day event taking place at MacEwan downtown. Here’s what it’s all about:

UXCamp is for people who want to learn and share about user experience, design, usability, information architecture, user interfaces, service design, and anything and everything else about creating better products and better experiences.

Edmonton joins a growing list of cities that have hosted UXCamp, DesignCamp, or InteractionCamp events. Like BarCamp, the schedule is open – anyone can sign up to present in a 20 minute time slot. You can read more about what they’re expecting for presentations and how the day will progress here.

Here are the details for UXCamp Edmonton:

Date: Saturday, July 18, 2009
Time: 9am – 5pm
Location: 9-202, Robbins Health Learning Centre (104th Ave, 109th Street - map)
Cost: Free

The event is limited to 100 people by the venue, so make sure you register now. If you’re interested in sponsoring, click here. Should be a great event!

Wi-Fi company Vex Canada launches

Yesterday was the launch of Vex Canada, a division of global Wi-Fi operator Vex Corporation. They’ve got a unique approach to the hotspot business, based around advertising. To start, they’ve partnered with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats:

After running pilot programs in a variety of locations across Canada, today’s announcement about the Hamilton Tiger-Cats marks an important milestone for Vex Canada. The partnership will allow stadium attendees, including fans watching Tiger-Cats games, to access free Wi-Fi through a stadium-wide HotSpot facilitated by Vex Canada. This will enable attendees to access the Internet using smart phones and laptops without incurring data charges.

The Vex model is different than hotspots you might have used in the past. Vex aims to marry a hotspot provider such as a coffee shop with advertisers. While the company is open to smaller-scale local advertising, the goal is to do national advertising wherever possible. Vex wants to build a national, ad-supported Wi-Fi network.

Vex started in Brazil in 2002, and has since grown to over 8000 hotspots in more than 35 countries. The model varies from country to country, depending on the local circumstances (users in some countries pay a fee, while users in other countries see ads).

I had the opportunity to meet Asif Khan, the Toronto-based entrepreneur charged with managing Vex Canada, a few months ago. He definitely brings passion to the table, and has been traveling across the country in recent months learning about what already exists (such as the Free Wi-Fi project here in Edmonton) and meeting with Wi-Fi leaders. Asif told me that Vex evaluated a number of models for Canada before finally settling on the ad-supported one.

I share Asif’s vision for Wi-Fi everywhere, and I’m eager to see if Vex can deliver on that. Wi-Fi providers in Canada haven’t been very successful thus far, and combined with the occasional discussion about municipality provided Wi-Fi, Vex faces an uphill battle. Asif has setup a blog for Vex Canada, and is an active user of Twitter too, so it’s easy to follow along.