Tech Around The World: Montreal Part 2
In part 1 of this series, we explored the cultural DNA of Montreal, and discovered what makes Montreal and French Canada unique. We even squeezed in a little French lesson along the way on one of our favorite words (computer).
If you need a little refresher, the French word for computer is ordinateur, or l’ordinateur. This was popularized by IBM in the 1950s, is derived from the latin root word “ordo”, and translates as “the device that puts things in order”.
In part two of this blog series, we will now explore a magasin d’informatique (technology store) to see how technology is sold and priced in French Canada.
When selecting a magasin d’informatique to explore, we wanted to select a major national retailer, to eliminate purchasing power disparities in our comparison. We selected Best Buy Canada as our retailer of choice.
Our staff writers arrived at the magasin d’informatique, with cameras in hand, late in the afternoon. The large retailer was arranged on two levels, with parking on the bottom floor, and the retail space above. Given that we chose a multinational chain, the store was laid out in a similar manner to the Best Buy locations that we have in the US. The magasin had all flavors of tech available, from TVs, to video games, to home appliances, and anywhere in between. The technology on offer was grouped into departments and employees were free floating, able to help when needed.
After spending the entire day traveling, our staff writers hastily made a beeline for the computer department, and the laptop section was up first.
On the subject of laptops, the French translation of laptop, is “ordinateur portable” or portable computer. That can be a mouthful to say every time, so it is commonly shortened to “portable”.
When the team arrived at the laptop section, they discovered that all of the familiar PC brands, were well represented, complete with fully localized and translated marketing copy. We found that the hardware pricing was about the same or a bit cheaper than the US, with entry level last generation laptop hardware being sold for about $800 USD.
Entry level laptops were quite affordable, with pricing on par with what is available in the US.
After dodging a helpful employee who was very interested in what we were doing, our staff writers swiftly moved on to the general computing hardware area.
We found that, in every area we looked, the major multinational brands were well represented, with similar product lines to what is available in the US.
From Wi-Fi routers, to data storage disks, to build your own computer parts, the standard multinational brands were all present, with pricing either matching US pricing, or slightly higher.
(we snapped some pics of what was available to purchase, peruse the slideshow below to get a feel for the magasin d’informatique)
Interestingly enough, not all of the brands we found, had fully translated packaging. Some of the newer brands, specifically in the build your own PC department, only had English product descriptions printed on the outside of the packaging.
Final Thoughts:
As the sun was setting, the staff writers made their way out of the magasin d’informatique into the warm Montreal evening air, confident that they got what they came for.
Next stop, a steaming plate of poutine.
