In terms of the supply chain, you're talking more about web portals, about Internet services used in supply chain management. I guess 30 years ago you were managing your supply chain by taking the phone, sending a fax, making three carbon copies, or something like that. There was some time required between how many products you had in your inventory, ording your products through your supplier, and getting products to your customers. Using business-to-business Internet services, of course you can do that in real time.
This is not just in manufacturing. When you walk into Walmart and buy something, they automatically know how much is left in the inventory. There may be a message being sent to the supplier already to say, okay, we need to order 100 of these units. It will come automatically.
This is a huge productivity increase, when you think of it in these terms, but it's not referring to machinery and equipment; it's more referring to using Internet services to maximize the relationship with your stakeholders, with your suppliers, or with your research partners.
You now see a lot of use of high-performance computers to do simulation, for example. In certain sectors, such as aerospace, they will simulate a certain type of environment to how it affects a certain material. A high-performance computer can tie all of your research partners into the same virtual system.
That requires very advanced machinery, but I think the important thing to keep in mind is that this advanced software requires advanced computers, and these advanced computers require a rapid network. If you have old copper infrastructure in your building, you're not going to be able to acquire a high-performance computer and conduct your R and D.
That's why I also want to point out—the CFIB pointed this out as well, I think, when they came here—that there's conversion to be done, in certain types of buildings, from copper to fibre, for example, so that you can have all these great things that technology can give us.