Well there hasn’t been an official announcement about it but I’ve heard rumours and rumblings for over a year that the deal that created Canada’s largest portal and the highest monthly page views is in about to come to an end. Sympatico/MSN are quietly working in the background to desolve their partnership, a partnership between Bell Canada and Microsoft Canada that was created over 5 years ago. A major sign came last year when Graham Moysey departed to head up digital at CanWest late last year. Since then many others have also “left the building” and joined other media companies in Canada. On one hand he could have stayed and ride the wave until the doors are locked for good, or he could have left and built up a digital empire under CanWest. Looks like he made the right decision and could be even better once CanWest gets past its current financial troubles.
Sympatico/MSN has continued to close a few deals in the last year, but their dominance in Canada seems to be behind them. Bell Canada has gone through a number of changes over the last year including a failed $48.6 billion take over plan last year by the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and since that time Bell has been streamlining and rebranding business units. Microsoft has been busy over the last year as it tries to figured out what they do a fend off competitors such as Google.
I expect an announcement to come around September of the official split which should give both sides time to get ready for 2010 and when I predict the market will turn around.
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