Ed Ogonek, CEO of Bridgewater Systems. (Darren Brown, OBJ)

This month's speaker at OCRI's Technology Executive Breakfast says the tech slump, for all its hardships, wasn't just about bankruptcies, unemployment and tales of woe.

Bridgewater Systems' president and CEO Ed Ogonek says that, just as the Great Depression made millionaires of some and paupers of others, the recent west-end slouch had mixed effects on Ottawa's technology businesses.

Some companies, obviously, went the way of the dinosaur. But others, he says, grasping the realities of the market, adapted their products and streamlined operations to suit their environments.

Mr. Ogonek is the featured speaker at OCRI's first TEB of the new year taking place Thursday, Jan. 26 at the renamed Scotiabank Place, formerly the Corel Centre.

He says Bridgewater was one firm that chose creativity over oblivion. By the downturn's peak in 2004, when he came into the fold, the vintage-1997 company had already secured a market niche and was operating in a strong survival mode.

"They'd done a nice job of surviving a very difficult period in the networking marketplace," says Mr. Ogonek, who before joining Bridgewater was senior vice-president and general manager of metro and enterprise solutions at Ciena. He has held a variety of executive positions at companies like Newbridge Networks, Alcatel, British Telecom, and Bellcore.

Bridgewater's method for combating the slump's effects? Innovation and targeted marketing to build and defend product differentiation, Mr. Ogonek says.

"A lot of people in the past, when the tech market was on hyper-growth, weren't shy about going to compete with the big vendors," he explains. "Because the market was growing so fast you could get a piece of the growth and it was big enough to grow a company around.

"Now," he continues, "because of the dynamics of the market, you have to be creative not only in terms of product approach, but also on how you can take advantage of an emerging opportunity that's not been fully addressed yet by the big incumbent vendors."

Hence the company's specialty – developing software that enables service providers to deliver slicker, faster, and more efficient multimedia services over wireless and broadband.

"There's a clear market need today based on growth in data subscribers for wireless, based on growth in data applications on broadband networks with voice over IP and IPTV, and those have created a need to be able to manage subscriber profiles in a dynamic way," he explains.

That's an area that's been under-invested by the big dogs in town, he says, and not surprisingly has been targeted by Bridgewater as an emerging market with no clear incumbent.

In fact, Mr. Ogonek predicts that by 2007 more Canadians will be hooked up with wireless rather than fixed-line communications – as is already the case in most European countries – and he plans on riding that wave all the way to the top.

"We have a strong opportunity to take a lead position," he says.

Current Bridgewater customers include Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, Bell Mobility, US Cellular, Virgin Mobile and Telecom New Zealand. Mr. Ogonek says that, since joining the company, Bridgewater has inflated its revenues more than 50 per cent in each of the past two years. Last year it doubled its employee base to over 120 workers at its Terry Fox Drive head office.

"You have to be creative, and you have to factor in where the market need is and where the competitive landscape is," he says. "A key part of it is finding the area where you can provide more value and greater depth of value than the large players can, and then to be able to capitalize on those things."

For more information on the TEB, visit www.ocri.ca

By Jim Donnelly

jim.donnelly@transcontinental.ca