Third Annual Survey on Russian Export Software Market

Introduction

RUSSOFT Association, a Nation wide amalgamation of software developing companies that includes the major part of largest and most influential software companies of Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia, is pleased to present the results of its annual Survey of the Russian Export Software Market. Polling and processing of results was carried out by RUSSOFT's analytical department with support from the Internet portal Outsourcing-Russia.com. Ministry of IT&Communications of Russian Federation and APKIT Association have also contributed to the financing of the study.

The in-depth survey is being done for the third year running. An attempt to define base indicators that characterize the state of the sector was undertaken earlier, in 2004. However, in that survey only individual questions regarding the Russian software export industry were studied, and a general picture of sectoral development could not be drawn due to the fragmentary nature of the information obtained and the lack of a unified methodology.

The reliability of the results obtained by this year's survey is guaranteed by the continuity of analytical methodology and by use of RUSSOFT's continually updated database on companies working in the industry. It is important from the standpoint of data comparison and determining dynamics that methodology should not change fundamentally from year to year. It can be developed and improved mainly by adding new questions when surveying developers, and by correcting the way in which questions are formulated. Besides, additional sources of information and ways of checking the reliability of this information can be employed.

Some sections of this year's survey have been widened. For example, more space has been given to geographical distribution of developers' activities and territorial expansion, as it is important to understand which regions can expect software industry growth in the foreseeable future. By comparison, last year's survey limited itself to just statistics on head-office locations.