Bixi’s former partners become key competitors | montrealgazette.com

 

8D Technologies, which developed technology for solar-powered parking meters and the software used for Bixi in Montreal, has partnered with Alta Bicycle Share to create a new bicycle-share service that would compete with Bixi. Isabelle Bettez, left, president and CEO of 8D Technologies (seen with her brother Jean-Sebastien Bettez, Chief Technological Officer) says the company has tried repeatedly to repair its relationship with Bixi despite the two companies suing each other after 8D refused an offer from Bixi to purchase all the rights to its software.

Photograph by: MARIE FRANCE COALLIER

MONTREAL — Software helped propel Bixi to early success, then sent it crashing into bankruptcy protection.

Now, 8D Technologies — the Montreal company that made the original Bixi software but had a falling out with Bixi — is suddenly a key player in the bike-sharing world and has emerged as a potential buyer of Bixi’s assets.

On Monday, as news spread that Bixi had laid off its interim CEO and 11 other employees, 8D and Alta Bicycle Share of Portland, Ore., another company with ties to Bixi, announced they were forming an alliance to sell bike-sharing systems to cities around the world.

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