Funny thing about a report commissioned by Manitoba Telecom Services about whether Canada's telecom act needs to be overhauled. The Winnpeg-based carrier puts out a 113-page report - prepared by Lemay Yates Associates - that says no big review is needed because the Telecom Act of 1993 is working well.
The interesting part is the conclusions, which outlines al number of changes that MTS would liike to see. This includes an easing foreign ownership rules and accelerating the CRTC's decision-making process - many of the same things that Bell, which has been lobbying for a policy/framework overhaul for the past year - wants to see.
My take is MTS wants the good parts of the status quo - i.e. rules that keep incumbent carriers such as Bell and Telus in check by making them to file tariff to sell different products - while getting the CRTC to change many of the things they don't like. It's a classic case of eating your cake and having it too.

Todd Bradley's decision to leave PalmOne is perhaps more evidence the Treo will never be a serious threat to the Blackberry. As much as the VC executives in Silicon Valley gush over the Treo, the Blackberry has become the tool of choice for people who want e-mail on the road.
You have to wonder if there's troubling brewing at PalmOne given Bradley was beaten to the exit door by Angel Mendez, who signed on with Cisco recently. Palm was a great, innovative device but it has been supplanted by better technology. The number of Blackberry users doubled last year to two million, and it appears the device is experiencing hockey-stick like growth. The Treo is a fine device but it has lost its mojo so it will be up to another company to develop the Blackberry-killer.

According to SiliconValley.com, the possibility of a Google browser powered by FireFox could become reality now that Mozilla Foundation president Mitchell Baker has a full-time Google employee. There is plenty of "I will continue to work on FireFox, blah, blah, blah" but you don't hire someone's brain without having some kind of mandate. A Google browser - or perhaps a Google-branded browser - makes complete sense as the company moves to become more of an application platform than just a search engine. Check out my posting below for more on this thesis.
By the way, Mitchell's move to the corporate world reminds me of Linus Torvalds' decision to join TransMeta while still tending to Linux. Torvalds lasted six years before leaving in 2003. I have a feeling Mitchell will have more intellectual freedom within the Google ThinkTank.

A day after Google denied it was getting into Internet telephony, there are reports the search engine giant is going to launch a new test service that will let couch potatos search for the content of television programs. For now, Google Video will only let you find still shots and text of TV shows, but the long-term strategy is apparently aimed at coming up with a service to let people replay programs on their computers.
While some people dismissed Google's apparent VOIP plans as misguided speculation, there is no doubt Google has lots of smart people trying to develop the next "killer app" for the Internet. Whether it's VOIP, TV, e-mail, social networking or photo editing, Google needs something new and exciting to jump-start growth.
This is not to suggest Google's AdSense business is losing momentum but its rate of growth is slowly as the business gets larger. To sustain revenue and profit growth, Google needs something else to excite analysts and investors. Don't be surprised if Google rolls out a variety of new services to see what sticks.
Another idea is Google will use some of its IPO proceeds to make a major acquisition - and we're not talking about something minor such as buying Blogger or Picasa. Does Google need to do something that bold? It all depends on the opportunity but it would be a mistake to under-estimate Google's need for a new growth engine.