Village Gamer

Vancouver’s Make Technologies, a privately held leading legacy modernization software and services company, has launched its new Partner Network Program, starting with a new strategic alliance with globally recognized firm Deloitte. The two companies will work together to develop a joint program targeting enterprise modernization initiatives.

“We are extending our success in the enterprise marketplace with this program,” said Jean-Guy Faubert, newly appointed Executive VP Global Alliances for Make Technologies. “There is strong demand for legacy application modernization solutions that allow companies to innovate and support business processes for competitive advantage, while leveraging existing investments. System Integrators play an invaluable role as trusted consultants to guide their customers through application modernization success. We’ve been successfully working with Network members and their customers on these mission-critical applications. Now we are expanding our outreach with active recruitment and strategic alliances.”

Deloitte has enrolled in Make Technologies’ newly formed Partner Network Program which provides program participants with support, specialized education and training, and access to its patented Transformational Legacy Modernization (TLM®) solutions and products. This program will help in the implementation of application modernization initiatives.

As a part of its Partner Network Program, Make Technologies has introduced categories to recognize the various needs and specialties of participating vendors. Make Technologies is looking to recruit strategic System Integration organizations focused on legacy application modernization projects and providing them with the solutions and services they need to effectively target this space today.

“Legacy application modernization is a growing market. This is a top of mind issue for most CIOs as they need assurance of project success with little to no interruption of service while transitioning from critical legacy applications,” said Ian Tait, Deloitte partner. “Organizations want to focus on their core competency, and not be in the business of maintaining custom code. Deloitte’s goal is to work with clients to ensure a strategy that can provide operational efficiencies and long term value.”

Make Technologies’ program participants will gain potential new revenue stream opportunities with this new program. They will also enjoy the benefits of marketing support, sales and pre-sales support and training programs. In addition, Make Technologies will also be offering accredited certification and training programs available through workshops and online courses.

Investintech PDF solutions is a leading provider of desktop, server and developer software for reading, converting, editing, creating and securing PDF documents. Today, Investintech.com is pleased to announce the release of the all new version 7 of its flagship PDF Converter software – Able2Extract. It is the first PDF converter to convert into all major Microsoft Office formats in a single product.

Version 7 is the biggest improvement in their product to date, from a totally new interface to the new and improved conversion outputs, here is a taste of what the new Able2Extract can do:

Able2Extract’s graphical user interface has been totally updated and includes a new streamlined toolbar to ensure an easier and less confusing experience. The new toolbar features and PDF conversion processes make viewing, selecting and converting PDF documents simpler and more efficient.

The most popular PDF conversion options have received attention and the result is better, faster and more accurate conversions. The developer has increased custom options for power users who want granular control over their conversion process.

Investintech’s flagship PDF to Excel conversion has a redesigned custom conversion feature which gives users of version 7 the ability to not only designate vertical column structure but also horizontal row structure. This will ensure maximum conversion accuracy for difficult PDF tables. Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto-based start-up DrinkBox Studios today announced that their alien-invasion-themed co-op platformer Tales from Space: About a Blob will be released in early 2011 as part of Sony Computer Entertainment America’s “Pub Fund” program.

Developers looking to release a game through the Pub Fund initiative must be prepared to build it to completion and commit to a period of console platform exclusivity. In return, approved developers receive a development-budget-matching royalty guarantee from SCEA. A number of popular PlayStation®Network games, including Burn Zombie Burn by DoubleSix and Joe Danger by Hello Games, have already been released through the program.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M44usucUWpg]

DrinkBox CEO Ryan MacLean had this to say about the initiative: “Pub Fund has been a good fit for us. The royalty guarantee and other Pub Fund terms have allowed us to confidently focus on finishing our game while retaining ownership and artistic control over the project. Working with SCEA has been a great experience in general: The advice they have given us over the course of development has helped us build a better game. We’re excited to be working with them on this project!”

Moncton software developer DOVICO Software has announced DOVICO Planning & Timesheet, a new software product from the makers of the industry leading DOVICO Timesheet. Building upon DOVICO’s Time Tracking foundation and user experiences, this new product answers the need for customers who want quick answers to simple questions such as: ‘Who is available and who is not?’, ‘How long will this project REALLY take to complete?’, ‘How much will this project cost us?’.

“Our goal for DOVICO Planning & Timesheet was a simple and easy project planning tool that satisfies a manager’s need to have a good insight into employees’ current and future availability – while keeping our core time tracking features in place.” said Bob Gorham, Product Manager at DOVICO. “Equally important is the ability to uncover what is keeping everyone occupied and , more significantly, a method to try ‘what if scenarios’ when planning a project and seeing the impact of these before moving ahead.”

DOVICO Planning & Timesheet: It’s easy to try and the first 30 days are free.

Immediate Benefits

* Determine whether you should take on a project or not.
* Ensure that your proposed project plan is accurate and profitable.
* Know which of your employees are being under/over utilized.
* Easy transition from a spreadsheet template such as MS Excel, simply copy and paste!
* Affirm that your best talent is working on your mission critical projects.
* Save time and costs in the planning process with our innovative tool that unites project planning and resource utilization.
* Reduce project overruns with our project forecasting tools so you can fix any issues proactively.
* Shorten billing cycles and get paid sooner.
* Deliver projects on time and on budget.
* Easily shift project priorities with our resource reassignment tools.
* High employee adoption with our intuitive time tracking solution.

I just received information from DFAIT that due to its relationship with San Diego’s high tech industry organization CommNexus, Canadian companies are welcome to apply to participate at MarketLink, which takes place in San Diego this November 17th & 18th. The deadline for interested companies to apply is October 22nd 2010. In conjunction with this invitation to participate, Verizon Wireless is looking for companies who specialize in these areas:

Privacy/identity management
Collaboration tools
Personal health & wellness monitoring
Consumer Cloud-based services (content sharing, gaming, etc.)
Mobile security
Mobile Services and Applications marketing tools
Mobile Application Development enablers (API management, porting, voice APIs, context awareness, mash-ups, etc)
Customer Analytics
In-car mobile experience
Hardware innovation
Voice innovation

Those of you who are fans of The Sims and Army of Two will be pleased to know that Rios and Salem will be making a crossover appearance in MySims SkyHeroes. Here’s a sneak peek at their adventure:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMblHqPUXpg]

Relic Entertainment has released a new video for Dawn of War II: Retribution. This new video takes a look at the Eldar Race, which was revealed for the first time during last weekend’s Games Day UK.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me4w9McKj40]

Montreal’s Audiokinetic Inc. has released the latest version of Wwise, its award-winning audio pipeline solution. Wwise 2010.2 introduces new features and enhancements.

Among the new features included in Wwise 2010.2:

* New Wwise effects: Tremolo, Flanger, Guitar Distorsion, Meter
* Side-Chaining
* Convolution Reverb
Read the rest of this entry »

Regina’s NetSecure Technologies, the company behind SmartSwipe, has announced a strategic partnership with BitDefender®, developer of BitDefender Antivirus Pro, BitDefender Internet Security and BitDefender Total Security. By combining the companies’ flagship products, NetSecure Technologies and BitDefender will provide a layered security package later this year to protect both consumers’ computers and their online transactions.

According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, Internet fraud increased by 22.3 percent last year, causing financial losses linked to online fraud to more than double. Additionally, a recent survey of social media users conducted by the Ponemon Institute, an independent research firm, found that identify theft from online banking was of greatest concern, followed by conducting e-commerce transactions.

Daniel McCann, president, NetSecure Technologies, said, “With the steady rise in both e-commerce and online fraud, the industry needs to look for better ways to protect consumers. Today, no one device or software program is completely effective in preventing identity theft and Internet fraud; therefore, consumers must leverage multiple security methods. Through our partnership with BitDefender, we’re confident that – together – we can provide a bundled security package to further protect consumers’ financial and personal information from malicious attacks.”

By leveraging its Dynamic SSL (DSSL) patented technology, NetSecure’s personal credit card reader, SmartSwipe, encrypts sensitive data at the point of origin, before it ever reaches the computer, protecting sensitive financial and personal information from endpoint threats. SmartSwipe cannot be hacked and thus protects both financial institutions and their customers from the growing threat of cyber fraud and identity theft.

“BitDefender’s goal is to help protect computer users across the globe from online threats,” said Peter Laakkonen, General Manager, OEM and Technology Licensing, BitDefender. “We’ve remained committed to set new standards in proactive threat prevention, and our partnership with NetSecure is the latest testament to that commitment. We look forward to working with NetSecure to effectively safeguard the online world.”

Meanwhile over in Ontario, WinMagic® Inc. has announced that leading research firm, Gartner Inc., has placed WinMagic as a “Visionary” in its Mobile Data Protection (MDP) Magic Quadrant* for 2010. WinMagic is committed to Research & Development, innovative features, comprehensive certifications, heterogeneous platform support and wide-ranging embedded system support for such technologies as Seagate self-encrypting (Drive Trust) drives, Opal compliant self-encrypting drives, TPM, Intel® Anti-Theft Technology (Intel® AT) and EFI. Read the rest of this entry »

More than ever, PC Health Advisor from ParetoLogic is an indispensable tool for the home computer user. The all-in-one software recently enhanced its suite of tools with a driver update function and a file extension manager. Combined, the software now gives average computer users a quick way to stop errors and improve performance in the Windows registry, boost disk performance via disk defragmentation, remove privacy and junk files, destroy active Malware, speed up Windows startup times, update out-of-date drivers, and fix file associations, along with other Windows tweaks.

“This was always our plan,” explained Norman Eldridge, ParetoLogic’s Technical Product Manager. “PC Health Advisor keeps its users covered, no matter where their computer problems originate. These new tools allow us to further expand the ways that PC Health Advisor protects and improves users’ PC performance.”

Developers combined the driver manager with the main PC Health Advisor scan to make operation as easy as possible. After analysing a user’s system, the scan displays outdated drivers and connects users with the new and updated drivers that they need. New drivers have the power to revive broken hardware, improve performance, and stop hardware error messages.

The file extension manager, found under the Optimize tab, searches for unsupported file extensions and provides links to the programs needed to open them. This allows users to always open the files they need, no matter how unfamiliar the extension.

“Drivers and file extensions are some of the most numerous, confusing, and time consuming items that a PC user has to deal with. By including these tools with PC Health Advisor, we’re going to save our customers a lot of time – and money,” said Mr. Eldridge.

All downloads of PC Health Advisor will now include these tools as part of the new version. Current PC Health Advisor users will be automatically updated to version 2.

Electronic Arts Inc. and independent Vancouver development studio Klei Entertainment would like to remind you that the highly anticipated downloadable 2D action game Shank, will be available for download today on PlayStation®Network for $9.99 and tomorrow, August 25th, on Xbox LIVE® Arcade (1200 MS Points). At press time, Shank was still showing a release date of “08.2010” on PSN, but the XBLA page has been updated with tomorrow’s release date. With its blend of classic side-scrolling action gameplay and stylized animation set against a modern-Western canvass, Shank tells a bloody story of revenge, penned by award-winning game writer Marianne Krawczyk.

“Our goal with Shank was to create a game that pays homage to the classic 2D brawler, while seeing how far we could push it by melding it with our own pulp-fiction influences,” said Jamie Cheng, CEO of Klei Entertainment. “At the end of a long road that began as an indie dream in 2009, we’ve finally shipped a visually striking, cinematic brawler.”

“With Shank, Jamie Cheng, Jeff Agala, and the team at Klei Entertainment have delivered the game analog of the black comedy symphony of violence dominating today’s indie film circuit,” said Jamil Moledina, Outreach Director at EA Partners. “This exquisitely bloody game conjures memories of the best arcade brawlers of the late 1980s, while delivering the production values and pitch perfect controls of a modern high definition blockbuster masterpiece.”

Shank tells a classic story of gangland betrayal through a violent, pulp-fiction lens. Gamers play as Shank, getting their hands bloody as they uncover the secrets of Shank’s past and the reasons he is hell-bent on revenge. With a deep and intuitive combat system, players unleash a tremendous number of creative combinations as they take down waves of enemies standing in their path. Shank also features a special co-operative campaign, designed to be played with a friend locally, which tells the backstory of the revenge plot. This prequel mission allows players to play as Shank or his partner-in-crime Falcone, with deadly double-team moves and gameplay that encourages teamwork.

Shank is one of the most highly anticipated downloadable game releases of this summer, having been nominated for Excellence in Visual Arts by the Independent Games Festival, as well as multiple “Best of E3” awards, including “Best Action Game” from IGN.com and “Best Downloadable Game” from GameTrailers.com. Shank is rated M by the ESRB.

The McLuhan Festival of the Future’s Vortex Videogame Conference and Competition, an illustrious event designed to showcase Ontario’s undiscovered videogame talent, has announced today that it will be accepting entries for its 2010 edition.

With the mission to create opportunities for emerging videogame companies and individuals to showcase their work locally, nationally, and internationally, Vortex achieves its goal through education, discourse, pitching, networking and, of course, competition. Read the rest of this entry »

The Hot Wheels® Colour Shifters™ Road Trip currently making its way across the country is taking a detour into Edmonton and Calgary to unveil its life-size colour-shifting Mustang. The cool, state-of-the-art Ford Mustang and the Hot Wheels® Colour Shifters™ Trailer has been zooming across the country visiting festivals, camps and family events in various towns and cities. The Road Trip runs all summer long from July to September, giving Canadians of all ages a chance to experience help changing the colour of the car themselves. Kids who attend the event can help change the colour of the car, play with Hot Wheels® toys and will also receive a special Hot Wheels® collector booklet, T-shirt and more.

Edmonton Stops:
August 10th: 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM at the Jamie Platz Family YMCA 7121 – 178 Street
August 11th: 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM at the William Lutsky YMCA 1975 111 Street

Calgary Stops:
August 12th: 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM at the Mid-Sun Community Centre 50 Midpark Rise SE
August 15th: 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM at Toys “R” Us 10450 MacLeod Trail SE
August 18th: 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM at the Southland Leisure Centre 2000 Southland Drive SW
August 18th: 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM at the Village Square Leisure Centre 2623 56 Street NE

Staying in Alberta for a bit, iStockphoto has launched a redesigned version of the world’s most popular stock multimedia marketplace. The new site offers a clean, contemporary look and feel, and reflects more than a year of customer-focused usability research and design. The new site was built using an innovative back-end architecture laying the framework for several future enhancements including a new search interface being unveiled before the end of the year.

The new site structure has been designed specifically around each type of audience that frequents the site, allowing faster, easier access to content. A revised navigation scheme, with a renewed focus on the customer, divides the site into three distinct segments: shop, participate and help. The work of exclusive contributors will be more prominently featured throughout the site via large “hero images.” iStockphoto has also noted this will be the last version of the site to support Internet Explorer® 6. Read the rest of this entry »

Today is Universal Game Designer Appreciation Day. Let those responsible for your hours (or years) of exciting, frustrating and triumphant adventures in the digital world of weird realms, interesting characters and immersive stories know how much you appreciate their labours. Buy their games, play their games, and recommend them to your friends so that you have someone’s butt to kick in multi-player mode.

Interactive Ontario has announced that Jordan Mechner, creator of the Prince of Persia franchise, will deliver the Keynote address at IN 2010. There is an impressive line-up of speakers presenting sessions at this year’s conference. IN 2010 will be divided into the following streams: Mobile, Social Media, Games, Cross Platform and Visionary. Make sure you register soon, the Early Bird tickets are only available until August 20th.

Building on the success of their inaugural event held this past May, the Canadian Video Game Awards will be returning on May 18, 2011 at the Centre For The Performing Arts in Vancouver. If you are in business and considering using Twitter as a tool, then the Twitter for Business Workshop is an event you may want to attend. Lead by social media pros Monica Hamburg and Tanya Roberts, this seminar will be held at the ING Direct Café Boardroom on August 21st and is designed to help you understand how to use Twitter to build your brand and interact with clients.

The second Vancouver BookCamp will be taking place at the SFU Downtown Campus – Harbour Centre on October 1st. This free (registration required) full day event brings together a variety of stakeholders in the publishing industry to discuss digital publishing, digital reading experiences, the book’s evolving role and how publishers can leverage themselves for success in the digital age.

Frima Studio has put Zombie Tycoon on sale on the PlayStation Store for only $2.49 until August 9, 2010. Normally $4.99, Zombie Tycoon is one of the most successful PlayStation Minis of all time and unlike any zombie game you’ve played before!

Frima’s team thought that it was about time to turn the tables on those living dead stereotypes…again and again, you find yourself having to survive some kind of undead apocalypse. Well, no more! In Zombie Tycoon, you get to control your very own horde of ravenous zombies! This unique tale of intrigue and betrayal spans over 10 challenging levels, complete with animated cutscenes, in-game dialogs, and a bunch of humorous references. Equip your slavering, putrescent swarm of undead minions with over 100 quirky items and send them shuffling after humans like wolves on cattle, laying waste to town after town as they spread their blight across the globe.

If you haven’t seen it already, here is the latest trailer for Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. In this trailer, hear from Spider-Man creator Stan Lee as he discusses the latest iteration of his web-weaving super hero.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjwLs6u-TNs]

Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions is scheduled for release on September 1st for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii (developed by Quebec’s Beenox Studios) and Nintendo DS (developed by Griptonite Games). There is a variety of pre-order bonuses available, depending on where and how you place your order.

“Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions delivers an original storyline that bridges four unique worlds,” said Rob Kostich, Head of Marketing, Activision Publishing, Inc. “Each action-packed universe will have its own detailed art design and thrilling missions, challenging gamers to use new skill sets to defeat enemies as they unlock powerful new moves and progress through the game.”

Those waiting for the resurrection of the True Crime franchise will have to wait a little longer. Activision has pushed back the anticipated release date for United Front’s upcoming open-world action title, True Crime®: Hong Kong. Instead of being released in 2010, it will now be making an appearance in 2011, stating that they are giving the dev team more time to polish the title in order to give gamers a high-quality playing experience.

Toon Boom Animation has released its first iPad app. Available for free, Flip Boom Lite will help you learn how to animate and create cartoons on your iPad. Along with the included demo project are features such as:

* Intuitive user interface with collapsible drawing slider, full-screen drawing, adjustable line width
* Brush, eraser, undo, reset view, bright colour selection, scale and translate
* Previous and next drawings display, flexible frame rate and send to photo library

There are also features which are unique to the app version of Flip Boom Lite: Cool Shake to undo a previous action, Magic Grab to reset your drawing to original position and Finger Pinch to scale and translate your drawing.

Also new over at Toon Boom is StoryBoard Pro 2, and along with new features is a new licensing option – Toon Boom is now offering a rental option, letting users rent the software for a full year at a cost of $299.99 USD for either Windows or Mac operating systems. Visit the StoryBoard Pro 2 page to see what’s new in this latest version.

Vancouver’s Sillysoft Games has released the first screenshots of their upcoming turn-based strategy game Castle Vox, slated for PC release in September 2010.

Castle Vox features simultaneously planned turns, as players vie to out-strategize each other on a variety of war maps. Multi-player modes allow both relaxed one-move-a-day games as well as fast speed wars. Board game fans will particularly look forward to Castle Vox, which mixes elements from Diplomacy and Axis & Allies and includes maps spanning many eras and mythologies, such as the American Revolution, Hades, Japan, Napoleonic Wars, Native America, Outer Space, and the Roman Empire. A map editor will let players create their own boards.

Toronto publisher Dreamcatcher Gamers, JoWooD Entertainment and the BVT Group announce that the release of the “ArcaniA – Gothic 4” Playstation 3 version is set for release in the first half of 2011. The successor of the internationally successful Gothic series will be released on current-gen consoles for the first time, additional to PC systems. Xbox 360 and PC versions will hit the stores on Oct. 12th 2010.

The focus during development of ArcaniA – Gothic 4 rested on a well-founded quality assurance. Playstation 3 gamers will experience the same, high quality product as Xbox 360 and PC customers. This has caused the adjustment of the release date but conversely sets the course for an outstanding gameplay experience on all platforms.

Telefilm Canada is pleased to announce the selected feature film projects from minority French- and English-language communities across Canada that have been selected under the Écrire au long and Feature It! initiatives, respectively.

Targeting eligible Francophone and Anglophone writers and producers, these initiatives are part of Telefilm’s Official Languages Activities (OLA) Program to develop market-driven feature film projects and to expand the available pools of these creators:

– Écrire au long targets eligible Francophone creators from Quebec communities outside Montreal and from Francophone communities outside the province of Quebec;
– Feature It! targets eligible Anglophone creators working in Quebec.

Participating writers and producers receive development funding in the form of an advance for a later phase of their projects and take part in four-day workshops to review the fundamentals of film development and scriptwriting with industry experts. In addition, participants will subsequently receive personalized, professional support from scriptwriting advisors or producer-mentors.

Toronto-based Francophone writer Maxime Desmons sees his acceptance into the 2010-2011 Écrire au long program as an opportunity to improve both his project and his scriptwriting skills.

“To participate in Écrire au long and receive financial support from Telefilm for such an early stage of a project increases my credibility as a scriptwriter,” he said. “Working with a mentor who will challenge me and critique my work professionally will make me work even harder on my project and strengthen me as a writer.”

Montreal-based Anglophone writer-producer Debra Kouri raved about her 2009-2010 Feature It! experience and how it helped her project Oh, Christmas Trees.

“In my 12-plus years in the film and television industry, the Feature It! training was the best I have ever received. We had extremely experienced lecturers and industry professionals share their experiences with us. The lessons we learned have already proven invaluable and I’m sincerely looking forward to writing my next draft. I wish this type of training was mandatory for all Canadian writers and producers!”

“At their cores, the Écrire au long and Feature It! initiatives give minority Francophone and Anglophone writers and producers such as Maxime and Debra the hands-on mentoring that is so essential to the fine tuning of their work as fiction feature film creators,” said Sheila de La Varende, Telefilm Canada’s Director of National and International Business Development. “Through this program and others, we are making progress on our goal to enhance industry skills, increase the number of feature-film scripts, and improve creators’ access to our main funding programs for the eventual production of their projects,” she added.

Telefilm collaborated with the following organizations to deliver each initiative’s training components:

– The Creative Women Workshops Association is delivering Feature It! training components and held a four-day workshop session that ran from June 19 to June 22, 2010, in Montreal.
– The Institut national de l’image et du son is delivering the Écrire au long training components and will hold a four-day workshop session that will be held in Montreal from August 30 to September 2, 2010.

Since the launch of the OLA program in 2006, Telefilm Canada has been seeking to expand the talent pool of Anglophone and Francophone creators working in minority official language communities across the country. A total of 36 English-language projects and 48 French-language projects have been supported following calls for entries issued to both of these communities. The Écrire au long and Feature It! initiatives conducted under Telefilm’s OLA Program have received financial support from Heritage Canada through the Interdepartmental Partnership with Official-Language Communities.

This is the fifth and final year for the Écrire au long program, and the fourth and final year for the Feature It! program. Telefilm will review results of both initiatives this fall to determine how best to support the professional development of minority-language Francophone and Anglophone creators moving forward.

SFO-based social web and mobile entertainment company Booyah has officially launched international support for its popular location based app MyTown. Now available exclusively for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad across Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, MyTown is the first to support global check-ins utilizing the recently launched Places Web Service via the Google Maps API.

“Booyah is the premier mobile and social gaming company on top of the exploding location graph,” said Keith Lee, CEO, Booyah. “Our launches in the UK, Australia and Canada are just the beginning of bringing real world gaming to players across the globe.”

MyTown’s location data is provided by the Places Web Service, a feature of the Google Maps API which returns the 20 most popular places near a given location. Blending location-based services and social gaming features, Booyah’s MyTown is the first and largest consumer channel to utilize the Places Web Service.

Currently more than 2.8 million users in the United States are actively buying properties, collecting rent and checking-in to real places in MyTown. Last week, Booyah introduced the product check-in, allowing players to scan barcodes of real-world products to unlock points and earn exclusive virtual items, creating real-life scavenger hunts, brand discovery and engagement.

Calgary’s Rare Method Interactive Corp. has appointed Mr. Joshua Ius to the position of Chief Financial Officer, effective immediately. Mr. Ius obtained his Chartered Accountant designation articling with PricewaterhouseCoopers. He also holds a Master’s in Professional Accounting and a Bachelors of Commerce in Entrepreneurial Management. His background includes both Industry and Public Practice experience.

Rogers Media Inc. and BV! Media Inc. have entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which Rogers Media will acquire all of the issued and outstanding Common Shares of BV! Media for $0.40 in cash per share. The all-cash consideration of $0.40 per Share values BV! Media at approximately $25 million and represents a premium of approximately 100% to the volume-weighted average trading price of the BV! Media shares for the past 20 trading days on the TSX Venture Exchange.

“We are thrilled to have the BV! Media team join the Rogers family,” said Claude Galipeau, SVP & GM, Digital Media, Rogers Media. “BV! Media has an extensive line of ad solutions that we will incorporate into our existing digital media sales offerings. In addition, the BRANCHEZ-VOUS! network of sites in Quebec will give us greater reach in the Francophone market. Upon closing, Rogers Digital Media will have an impressive set of content offerings and digital sales solutions, including premium brands, exclusive sales inventory on partner sites, channels targeting key demographics, and performance media.”

“We are very pleased with this transaction for many reasons: it reflects BV! Media’s true value and exemplifies our commitment to maximize value for all our shareholders,” commented Gino Coutu, President, Ad network and co-CEO of BV! Media. “Furthermore, it is occurring with a strategic partner that has already demonstrated its respect for our organization and our people, and it ensures total continuity with our trusted partners and clients. This transaction is fully supported by the senior management team.”

“After fifteen years as a successful standalone business we are eager to become part of one of Canada’s largest media companies and to have our team and assets contribute to Rogers’ expansion in both digital media and the Quebec market” commented Patrick Pierra, founder and co-CEO of BV! Media.