0.38 - The guys get started with talk about the news of a potential BCE / Telus merger.
1.01 - Duncan talks about private equityâs interest in Bell and their inability to cut costs the same way that Telus could because they would lack the same synergy that combining Telus and BCE would have, which gives Telus has the ability to bid much higher than other players.
3.17 - What will the merger mean to foreign ownership restrictions in Canada?
3.39 â Duncan suggests if the merger goes through there will be the potential for other carriers to follow suit.
3.55 â Canada could end up with 2 or 3 national players which will mean less choice for consumers, higher costs and layoffs.
4.20 â The guys discuss the current environment and the fact that Canada is already priced as though it were in a monopoly situation, can we expect prices to go even higher?
5.10 â Duncan talks about Stephen Harper and the Tories general Western-based roots, they would love to see Eastern-based Bell be bought out by Western players.
5.53 - Harper is an economic nationalist and has received flack in the past for letting assets such as Inco go.
6.04 â Setting the stage for a national player in telecom will help motivate the government to take down take down international barriers to allow them to eventually ease foreign ownership regulations.
6.27 â The Federal government is encouraging creation of a large national player in telecom that can compete internationally, how will it affect the banking sector?
7.07 â Talk of Telus CEO Darren Entwistleâs rise from regional VP at Cable & Wireless to potentially becoming the King of Canadian telecom if the merger with BCE goes through.
7.46 â The guys wonder how Entwistle will get along with BCE CEO George Cope â
8.44 â More CEO chat. Announcement that co-founder of Yahoo, Jerry Yang, has replaced Terry Semel as the new CEO of Yahoo.
9.25 â Semelâs demise came when he didnât buy Google.
10.03 â Most companies donât do well when the founder of the company steps back in as CEO. The one exception to the rule being, Appleâs Steve Jobs.
10.30 - Talk that Yahoo will get out of the search business and focus on ad revenue instead.
10.52 â Mark suggests the issue with Yahoo is it has lost its personality and become very corporate, whereas Google despite being big business, is still seen as a dynamic, fun company.
12.02 â Interesting that Canadian tech company Cognos blame their luke warm 2nd Quarter forecasts on the rise of the Canadian dollar. Conducting research and development in Ottawa has always been cheap, but the rising dollar is affecting the cost.
Audio or text comments for Mark, Kevin and Duncan can be emailed to heytalkingtech@gmail.com.
Our announcer is the lovely Amber Mac and the music is No Mojo by Anthony Stauffer and Holy Smoke which is available on the pod safe music network.
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