No mention of Canadian high-tech can fail to cite Nortel's impact on the high-tech scene. The company remains the primary supplier of fiber-optic network equipment, and it held a 43 percent share of the global optical transmission market as recently as the second quarter of 2000. But it cut 1,000 jobs in Canada in January, and may cut as many as 10,000 worldwide by year's end.
     There's a lot more to the sprawling country's high-tech story, however. JDS Uniphase Corp., for instance, has expanded to 360,000 sq. ft. (33,400 sq. m.) of space in Ontario over the past three years. Cognos, in Ottawa, has opened 180,000 sq. ft. (16,700 sq. m.) of offices for its software development personnel.
     Montreal ranks fourth in North America in high-tech job density, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers and E&B Data, including jobs in the aerospace and biopharmaceuticals industries, as well as IT. In the July 2000 issue of Wired, Montreal came in 12th among global high-tech hot spots. Recent projects in the area include huge plants and expansions by Cognicase, a software developer, and telecom facilities from Harris Canada and Microcell Communications, a personal communications firm. Montreal is also home to Swedish telecom company Ericsson, which has pursued over $380 million worth of research projects at its facilities in the city since 1992. And Taiwanese chip wafer maker Mosel Vitelic employs 4,500 people, while also considering whether to locate a 300-mm wafer plant there. Lumenon Innovative Lightwave Technology just opened its CA$58 million facility in Saint-Laurent, which will be boosted by CA$3 million in funds from Investissement Quebec to create 200 high-tech jobs.
     By all evidence, Mexico's overt dependence on both the automotive manufacturing sector and the petroleum sector has diffused into other areas, including high-tech, that hold much promise for equal portions of international development and the nurturing of a domestic New Economy workforce. As the well-known maquiladoras move further south, niches in the growing border economy are being filled by more high-tech and knowledge-intensive businesses, with a concomitant rise in wages that can only spell success for Mexico's notoriously low-paid workforce.