Another week, another Talking Tech podcast. This week, we've actually got a live guest - technology analyst Duncan Stewart, who has been part of Canada's tech landscape for the past decade as a fund manager and equity analyst. In a spirited roundtable discussion (fueled by some Starbucks java), we talked about Nortel's decision to end a 92-year-old auditing relationship with Deloitte Touche; Yahoo's decision to appoint Susan Decker as chief operating officer; the start-up landscape within Canada's technology industry, and the hottest holiday gifts (Wii, Zune, Xbox, etc.)

So how keen are you about Microsoft Vista? Keen enough to be among the first people to embrace the new, much-anticipated and much-delayed operating system? During this week's Talking Tech podcast, Kevin Restivo and I both advise smart computers users to wait on Vista until Microsoft fixes any of the inevitable bugs that will emerge despite years of development and billions of dollars of R&D. After all, we're talking about an operating system with 40 million lines of code.

That said, when I think of Vista, I think of those old Fram oil filter commercial in which a mechanic tells a customer, "you can pay me now or you can pay me later". For computer users, it means you can migrate to Vista now (not recommended) or do it later but at some point, you'll probably have to do it to take advantage of new software and Web services designed specifically for Vista. While everyone is focused on Vista, people and investors shouldn't overlook the launch of Office 2007 given Office accounts for 30% of Microsoft's sales and 50% of profits.

Earlier this week, the Toronto Sun laid off 16 more employees - reflecting the newspaper industry's continued struggles. The question is if you owned a newspaper, what would you do to fix it? USAToday's Kevin Maney had an interesting column exploring the idea earlier this week, while I was inspired to write a blog post with my take.

Finally, Kevin (Restivo) and I looked at BitTorrent's $20-million venture capital deal. We're not sure how BitTorrent is going to spend $20-million given it doesn't have a P2P network to operate. Perhaps it's a sign investors believe the music and movie industries will start to capitalize on P2P rather than fight it like the music industry has insisted on doing. It could also suggests BitTorrent's investors believe consumers may be willing to pay for an online service that provide high-quality downloads at reasonable prices (much like iTunes). Then again, the problem with the P2P world is even if you have a legitimate player emerge, there will always be new ones offering free content...such as DailyMotion.com, which has a library of commercial-free TV shows.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Newspapers, P2P, Video

After a brief one-week hiatus (did you miss us?), Kevin Restivo and I are back with another Talking Tech podcast. Obviously, the story of the week was the launch of the Nintendo Wii, which had people lining up in the middle of the night outside stores for the "privilege of buying one - a supply-demand phenomena I have a difficult time getting a handle on. Speaking of supply and demand, Google shares cracked through $500, and with people like Jim Cramer frothing at the mouth, is it only a matter of time before $750 starts to loom on the horizon? (Motley Fool has a column looking at whether it's time to buy, sell or hold) Kevin and I also get into the wireless market in the wake of a two-part feature run by the Globe & Mail, which looked at Canada's lucrative market where the players are filling their boots amid a rational pricing environment and limited competition (can anyone oligopoly?). Finally, we touch upon the steady growth in the popularity of podcasts - according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project study more than 17 million people downloaded a podcast in the six months ended Aug. 30, compared with 10 million in the previous six month period. Obviously, Talking Tech must be a factor in this growth...:)...if only!!

During last week's wonderful mesh meet-up, Leesa Barnes worked the crowd with her digital recorder and microphone doing a series of podcast interviews. She did a terrific job talking to a whole bunch of people about what they were excited about on the Web these days. We've posted some of them on the mesh Web site for your listening pleasure. Thank you, Lisa, for being so enthusiastic. You really added an amazing component to the evening. And thank you for your very nice blog post the other day.

There's lots of talk about online advertising, plenty of growth, and lots of repercussions among the media landscape as more readers and advertisers move to the Web. There's also many advertisers still unclear about what to do and where to go online - something Kevin Restivo and I discuss during this week's Talking Tech podcast. We also spend some time talking about the strategic dilemma facing Cinram, which is scrambling to figure out if there is life in the digital medium beyond the making of CDs and DVDs. The last time, Cinram really ventured online it entered into an agreement with MP3.com to make custom-made CDs in 2000 - a deal that failed to gain any kind of traction. Finally, Kevin and I touch on NTP's lawsuit against Palm. As many people know, NTP sued Research in Motion for patent infringement, and walked away with a settlement of more than $600-million. The question is whether NTP is really that much different than Qualcomm, which generates huge amounts of fees from companies using its technology. (Thanks again to David Jones, Ed Lee and Neil Johnson for their production work, as well as Amber MacArthur for doing the show's voice intro.)