Just when you thought everything was returning to "normal" at Nortel, the embattled company said its Q2 results will be delayed until Aug. 8 because it wants to "more closely align with the filing of its second quarter of 2005 quarterly report on Form 10-Q with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission." This claim may be valid but don't you think Nortel could have done more homework before announcing its Q2 results would come out Aug. 3? You would think someone within its executive suites or financial team would have thought about aligning Nortel's results with whatever the SEC requires. Then again, this is a company that has become "The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight" of the telecom sector. While a five-day delay is a minor faux pas, it just another in a growing list of bizarre moves. This is without getting into the mysterious departure of COO Gary Daichendt after only three months on the job.

Bell Canada is spending C$26-million to acquire the residential assets of Montreal-based Cable VDN. In the scheme of things, it is not a major deal but if you scratch behind the surface, there is more to it than meet's the eye. How come? Cable VDN uses a fiber-optic network in Montreal to deliver broadband and digital TV service to apartment buildings and condos - a.k.a. multi-dwelling units, or MDUs. The deal will let Bell aggressively pursue 400,000 MDUs - a market where it has taken a back seat to cable companies. This should give Bell a way to fire back at Videotron, which has taken more than 40,000 local telephone customers from Bell since February. Bell can now go after Videtron's cable customers who live in apartment buildings and condos with its own digital TV service. Bell said Cable VDN has about 13,000 TV and 3,000 high-speed customers in Montreal. Another benefit is Bell can now spend more resources and time getting its VDSL technology into more MDUs in Toronto.

IBM is acquiring yet another Canadian software maker with a deal for DWL Inc. for an undisclosed amount. This is the second Canadian acquisition by IBM in the past month - it bought Victoria-based PureEdge Solutions Inc. last month - and the fifth in the past three years. DWL, which employs 148 people, makes software that provides busineses with information about customers and sales prospects. From a bigger picture perspective, IBM has obviously discovered there's good technology at attractive prices to be found north of the border. According to the Profit Magazine 100, DWL had revenue in the year ended June 30, 2004 of US$14.3-million.
For more information about the deal, here's a story in the National Post as well as this posting on JavaLobby.

Technorati has issued its latest State of the Blogosphere, and there are no signs this blogging thing is losing any steam. According to data collected, 80K new blogs are created every day - or one per second - which means the blogosphere will apparently double within 5.5 months. Of the 14.2 million blogs Technorati now tracks, 55% are active while 13% are updated at least weekly. I'd be interested in knowing the life span of many of the 80K blogs created each day. In other words, how many go dead within a week or a month or two months? And of the 14.2 million blogs now tracked by Technorati, how many are "active"? And how does Technorati define "active"? How many are updated only once a month or once every few months? 14.2 million is a big number but it may not be as big as advertised when you start to dig deeper.
More interesting is Technorati's discovery that MSN Spaces, Blogger, LiveJournal and AOL Journals are among the hosted services growing quickly, while WordPress and Movable Type are also enjoying huge popularity. An interesting trend is the growth of the blogging eco-system as complementary services emerge. Technorati cites WordPress-based hosting services such as Laughing Squid (love the name!), Dreamhost and Blue Host. When it comes down to where the money will be made in blogging, it will probably happen in the eco-system where companies will offer value-added services (hosting, plug-ins, content management, etc.). Check out my recent story in the National Post about blog-nomics.

Maybe I shouldn't have been so anxious to buy that iPod mini recently. According to Engadget, Apple has changed the iPod's trademark information to include the reading of "video files". Read what you want into the tweak but it's a logical and strategically important move for the iPod to maintain its dominance of the market. Call it the Moore's Law for the digital device sector. If you don't keep moving aggressively, the competition will catch up, force down prices and eventually marginalize you. For the ugly evidence of this reality, check out the history of the Sony Walkman. So how long do you think we'll have to wait before we see the iPod Video?
For a look at the new Zen Vision, check out Gizmodo.