The Corel Centre - the home of the Ottawa Senators  - is no more. The arena is still standing but the software maker's name will be coming down after the naming rights were purchased by Bank of Nova Scotia. "I can see why it fits the Scotia footprint instead of Corel's now," Michael Cowpland, Corel's founder and ex-CEO, told the National Post. In 1996, Corel paid $26-million for a 20-year deal with the arena, although it was seen as a surprise given the software maker was struggling financially.

With growing concerns about security, you'll be hearing a lot more about digital surveillance systems. A company on the leading edge is Ottawa-based March Networks, which makes digital video recorders used to store and manipulate the images captured by cameras. The company's stock is red-hot, having doubled since Halloween. The company's technology is resonating with banks, retailers looking to deal with false "slip and fall" lawsuit claims, and transportation systems such as subways and railways. For more on March, I have an investment feature in today's National Post.

 

In a surprising move, SearchFox will be shutting down its RSS reader service on Jan. 25. In an e-mail, the start-up did not provide a reason for the decision but encouraged users to export their links and OMPL files. The move comes out of the blue because SearchFox was still in beta and it had been well received. In a review last September, TechCrunch described it as a "potentially disruptive RSS reader". Perhaps SearchFox saw the writing on the wall as Microsoft prepares to get into the RSS reader market. It could be that SearchFox is just the first of many high-profile RSS readers to fall victim to the market's consolidation. You have to ask what the future holds for start-ups such as Attensa that haven't been bought yet by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or Ask Jeeves.