Publications on High Technologies in Russia in Foreign Mass Media
A chapter from 10th Annual Survey of the Russian Software Export Industry
Sep 10, 2013
When it does not come to political things, foreign journalists usually look with favor on Russia here and now and perceive it as a country where globally competitive solutions and technologies may appear. However, only a few years ago the situation was absolutely different. The analysis of leading mass media publications was suggesting that the article writers often thought of Russia as a huge territory with oil derricks, vodka making factories, and missile pits. Even the availability of the frightening military industrial complex, which seemed to testify the Russians’ capability to solve the most challenging technological tasks, hardly influenced the extremely show-me attitude of ordinary people towards the "Made in Russia" text on a shrink-wrapped software product. Because of this, Russian software companies who wished to sell software to a wide audience of foreign consumers, avoided – by all means and whenever possible – drawing attention to the country where solutions were originated. They often operated at a foreign market on behalf of their local subsidiaries, who were selling their alleged own product without reference to Russian developers.
By 2012-2013 such secrecy faded in importance. Usage of the "Made in Russia" slogan in marketing is not unambiguously desirable yet (especially in the leading Western countries, i.e. in the markets on which Russian software companies are mainly focused) but it is not as risky as it used to be a few years ago.
That drastic change of mood happened two years ago. Then, the share of scientific and technical publications that provided relatively positive information about Russia exceeded the level of 50% and reached 66% with a significant increase in the foreign mass media interest towards the Russian hi-tech economy sector. For all the previous years (until 2011) there were approximately one and a half times more negative publications than positive ones. Last year we made a tentative prognosis that this turn was most likely natural and irreversible despite some decrease in the foreign press loyalty index (from 66% to 59%). The results of mass media monitoring for the last 12 months showed that this conclusion was correct: the number of publications that positively influenced the image of Russia considerably increased in comparison with the previous year.
The analysis was only performed based on publications describing the hi-tech economy sector and, first of all, the software development industry. The search was performed within a number of specialized editions and in the media resources which are the most popular in the world and in separate continents. And we were hunting for two keywords only – Russia and Software. Messages and reviews not directly related to the high technologies were peeled apart. The list of monitored mass media included the following 25 resources: Asia Times, BÂC, BusinessWeek, CIO Magazine, CNET, Computerworld, The Independent, eWeek (PC Week), Financial Times, Forbes, Global Services magazine, The Hindu, IT Europa, InfoWorld, InformationWeek, Linux Magazine, MacWorld, Network World, The New York Times, PC World, REUTERS, TechNewsWorld, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and ZDnet.
Due to a huge increase in the number of publications under consideration, we had to significantly reduce the search range. Moreover, there was a time offset. Earlier, we selected publications from June to July of the next year (or from May to June), but this year we changed timeframes and selected publications from April to March. In this regard, comparison with the last year’s research results is not so absolutely correct. Therefore, this year we have done job twice – we reculculated the number of articles within two periods: from April 1, 2011 to March 31, 2012 and from April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2013. That is, 2011-2012 publications were analyzed repeatedly but with different search parameters. It is worthy of note that the discrepancy between the received loyalty indexes for closely resembling time periods is insignificant – 2% only (57% instead of 59%).
The result of publication content analysis for the last two years testifies that the share of articles that positively influence the image of Russia increased from 57% to 70%. Most likely, such significant increase is explained by two main reasons. The first is connected to the recently observed fact that our companies and officials finally began to provide information to foreign mass media more actively. This credit is due to the Russian export companies, government officials, sub-governmental structures, and industry associations. The second main reason is a decrease in the number of events connected to technical failures, which negatively affect the country’s image.
It is important to note that the total number of publications about high-tech Russia increased by 8%. The growth did not turn out to be as great as a year before (then, it was 93%) but considerable enough to be mentioned.
A few years ago there was a consistent pattern: positive publications favorable for Russian software companies’ export appeared mainly in the specialized editions that were far from participation in political games. It was also the case for the mass media of countries that assumed, at least, a neutral attitude in to Russia. Now this rule does not work any longer. Moreover, when analyzing publications over the past 12 months, it became clear that for the first time negative publications appeared more often in specialized high-tech editions than in business and general political editions (60% versus 40%). Such ratio will hardly remain in the future. Nevertheless, at present it is fair to say that the distinctions that were earlier observed between specialized editions and business ones have been blurred out. The two mass media types show approximate parity by all indicators – by number of editions included in our analysis, by number of publications, by share of articles with a negative attitude towards Russia. The deviations are accidental or temporary.
All conclusions drawn above only concern those articles and reviews that refer high technologies. Publications on other subjects (for example, about political events) contain much more negative than positive that is certainly not favorable for promotion Russian software products and software development services in foreign markets. However, it is not worth overestimating the importance of negative articles. For example, China is presented in western mass media as an even more non-democratic state but it does not disturb successful promotion of Chinese goods in the US and in the European markets. Some Russian companies also take the leading positions in these markets irrespective of the content of western mass media publications about Russia. Kaspersky Lab manages to dominate not only in the US corporate’ but even in the retail market. In Germany, the Russian antivirus developer steadily heads the list, after having beaten the local G-Data to the second place. In Spring 2013 IDC awarded Kaspersky Lab with the title "leader" in the Endpoint Security protection solutions for large business, following results of the comparative analysis of vendors in the West European market.
Apparently, western consumers are pragmatic and mostly evaluate quality and price instead of an exporting country’s "democratic character" and "friendliness" in the mass media coverage. In the USA, after the one more exacerbation of relations with China, attempts to launch Chinese goods boycott campaigns are periodically made but, as a rule, they turn out to be unsuccessful. Thus articles that show possibilities of creating quality hi-tech solutions in Russia are more important for promotion of the Russian products and services than negative publications about the political situation.
At the end of 2012 Wired ( US edition) put Evgeny Kaspersky on the eighth place in the list of the most dangerous people in the world. The resource explained its choice by participation of Kaspersky Lab (Evgeny Kaspersky is the founder and the head of the company) in neutralization of virus attacks against the Middle Eastern countries. It is unlikely that even such invective may negatively affect the Kaspersky Lab positions in the US market. Moreover other US mass media did not support Wired.
Editions whose content we have analyzed in this research considerably differ from each other by their attitude towards Russia. The greatest attention to the Russian hi-tech sector was paid by ZDnet, eWeek, and PC World. Following results of the last 12 months BusinessWeek, The Hindu, and REUTERS can be considered as the most loyal editions. InformationWeek, PC World, and InfoWorld were the most disloyal ones. It is remarkable that editions that publish the most negative materials about technological Russia have a very small number of publications. Most likely, it reflects the fact that their warped conceptions are connected to a lack of information about Russia. More active work with such editions may considerably improve the situation with their negative publications. Such work can be carried out, for example, in lending the state support to the international marketing activity of Russian hi-tech companies. However, individual companies can also improve the situation by working more closely with the most disloyal editions.
* Only editions with at least 5 publications per year are included in the table
* Only editions with no less than 5 publications per year are included in the table.
* Only editions with no less than 8 publications for the last two years are included in the table.
* Only editions with no less than 8 publications for the last two years are included in the table.
The majority of publications about Russian high-tech in foreign mass media were connected to the information security. At the same time, the share of this subject continues to increase in the last three years. Thus foreign readers may begin to think that other IT directions are neglected in Russia - although it is not true. However, similar distortion is natural. Firstly, it is explained by the fact that the mass media pay special attention to information security (to threats and revealed vulnerabilities). Secondly, Russian companies that are engaged in information security matters more actively communicate with foreign journalists than others. Thirdly, the western mass media still consider Russia (along with China) to be the largest source of cyber threats (which reflects an artificially created enemy image rather than the real situation). However the share of publications about the Russian cyber threat significantly reduced over the last 12 months. From now foreign mass media are frightening their citizens with the Russian bugbear far less frequently.
Dr. Web was most mentioned in the foreign mass media for the last 12 months. Most likely this company’s leadership is temporary. The leadership is connected to the fact that Dr. Web experts managed to identify vulnerabilities in the globally popular software, and this fact raised the interest of the world mass media to the company and to its experts. Almost all articles that mentioned Dr Web were published within 2-3 months.
The second place of Kaspersky Lab (the largest Russian software product exporter) is more natural as the reference to the company was caused by several events - as well as journalists’ resort to its expert estimations. This company was among the leaders in this rating in prior years as well, and we can surely look forward to new publications about it in the future.
The third place of Yandex is connected to their recent IPO that increased foreign mass media interest towards this company. Other Internet companies are mentioned much less often (f.ex. Mail.ru, X-Cart, OZON, and Odnoklassniki – just once each). Totally foreign journalists noted 20 Russian companies, some of which are mainly oriented towards the Russian market.
Previous | Next
By 2012-2013 such secrecy faded in importance. Usage of the "Made in Russia" slogan in marketing is not unambiguously desirable yet (especially in the leading Western countries, i.e. in the markets on which Russian software companies are mainly focused) but it is not as risky as it used to be a few years ago.
That drastic change of mood happened two years ago. Then, the share of scientific and technical publications that provided relatively positive information about Russia exceeded the level of 50% and reached 66% with a significant increase in the foreign mass media interest towards the Russian hi-tech economy sector. For all the previous years (until 2011) there were approximately one and a half times more negative publications than positive ones. Last year we made a tentative prognosis that this turn was most likely natural and irreversible despite some decrease in the foreign press loyalty index (from 66% to 59%). The results of mass media monitoring for the last 12 months showed that this conclusion was correct: the number of publications that positively influenced the image of Russia considerably increased in comparison with the previous year.
The analysis was only performed based on publications describing the hi-tech economy sector and, first of all, the software development industry. The search was performed within a number of specialized editions and in the media resources which are the most popular in the world and in separate continents. And we were hunting for two keywords only – Russia and Software. Messages and reviews not directly related to the high technologies were peeled apart. The list of monitored mass media included the following 25 resources: Asia Times, BÂC, BusinessWeek, CIO Magazine, CNET, Computerworld, The Independent, eWeek (PC Week), Financial Times, Forbes, Global Services magazine, The Hindu, IT Europa, InfoWorld, InformationWeek, Linux Magazine, MacWorld, Network World, The New York Times, PC World, REUTERS, TechNewsWorld, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and ZDnet.
Due to a huge increase in the number of publications under consideration, we had to significantly reduce the search range. Moreover, there was a time offset. Earlier, we selected publications from June to July of the next year (or from May to June), but this year we changed timeframes and selected publications from April to March. In this regard, comparison with the last year’s research results is not so absolutely correct. Therefore, this year we have done job twice – we reculculated the number of articles within two periods: from April 1, 2011 to March 31, 2012 and from April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2013. That is, 2011-2012 publications were analyzed repeatedly but with different search parameters. It is worthy of note that the discrepancy between the received loyalty indexes for closely resembling time periods is insignificant – 2% only (57% instead of 59%).
The result of publication content analysis for the last two years testifies that the share of articles that positively influence the image of Russia increased from 57% to 70%. Most likely, such significant increase is explained by two main reasons. The first is connected to the recently observed fact that our companies and officials finally began to provide information to foreign mass media more actively. This credit is due to the Russian export companies, government officials, sub-governmental structures, and industry associations. The second main reason is a decrease in the number of events connected to technical failures, which negatively affect the country’s image.
It is important to note that the total number of publications about high-tech Russia increased by 8%. The growth did not turn out to be as great as a year before (then, it was 93%) but considerable enough to be mentioned.
| Impact on Russia’s image | Out of all publications | |
|---|---|---|
| 01.04.2011-31.03.2012 | 01.04.2012-31.03.2013 | |
| Positive | 57% | 70% | Negative | 43% | 30% |
| From April, 2011 to March, 2012 | From April, 2012 to March, 2013 | For two years (from April, 2011 to March, 2013) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Specialized publications | Business and general political publications | Specialized publications | Business and general political publications | Specialized publications | Business and general political publications |
| 49% | 51% | 60% | 40% | 54% | 46% |
A few years ago there was a consistent pattern: positive publications favorable for Russian software companies’ export appeared mainly in the specialized editions that were far from participation in political games. It was also the case for the mass media of countries that assumed, at least, a neutral attitude in to Russia. Now this rule does not work any longer. Moreover, when analyzing publications over the past 12 months, it became clear that for the first time negative publications appeared more often in specialized high-tech editions than in business and general political editions (60% versus 40%). Such ratio will hardly remain in the future. Nevertheless, at present it is fair to say that the distinctions that were earlier observed between specialized editions and business ones have been blurred out. The two mass media types show approximate parity by all indicators – by number of editions included in our analysis, by number of publications, by share of articles with a negative attitude towards Russia. The deviations are accidental or temporary.
All conclusions drawn above only concern those articles and reviews that refer high technologies. Publications on other subjects (for example, about political events) contain much more negative than positive that is certainly not favorable for promotion Russian software products and software development services in foreign markets. However, it is not worth overestimating the importance of negative articles. For example, China is presented in western mass media as an even more non-democratic state but it does not disturb successful promotion of Chinese goods in the US and in the European markets. Some Russian companies also take the leading positions in these markets irrespective of the content of western mass media publications about Russia. Kaspersky Lab manages to dominate not only in the US corporate’ but even in the retail market. In Germany, the Russian antivirus developer steadily heads the list, after having beaten the local G-Data to the second place. In Spring 2013 IDC awarded Kaspersky Lab with the title "leader" in the Endpoint Security protection solutions for large business, following results of the comparative analysis of vendors in the West European market.
Apparently, western consumers are pragmatic and mostly evaluate quality and price instead of an exporting country’s "democratic character" and "friendliness" in the mass media coverage. In the USA, after the one more exacerbation of relations with China, attempts to launch Chinese goods boycott campaigns are periodically made but, as a rule, they turn out to be unsuccessful. Thus articles that show possibilities of creating quality hi-tech solutions in Russia are more important for promotion of the Russian products and services than negative publications about the political situation.
At the end of 2012 Wired ( US edition) put Evgeny Kaspersky on the eighth place in the list of the most dangerous people in the world. The resource explained its choice by participation of Kaspersky Lab (Evgeny Kaspersky is the founder and the head of the company) in neutralization of virus attacks against the Middle Eastern countries. It is unlikely that even such invective may negatively affect the Kaspersky Lab positions in the US market. Moreover other US mass media did not support Wired.
Editions whose content we have analyzed in this research considerably differ from each other by their attitude towards Russia. The greatest attention to the Russian hi-tech sector was paid by ZDnet, eWeek, and PC World. Following results of the last 12 months BusinessWeek, The Hindu, and REUTERS can be considered as the most loyal editions. InformationWeek, PC World, and InfoWorld were the most disloyal ones. It is remarkable that editions that publish the most negative materials about technological Russia have a very small number of publications. Most likely, it reflects the fact that their warped conceptions are connected to a lack of information about Russia. More active work with such editions may considerably improve the situation with their negative publications. Such work can be carried out, for example, in lending the state support to the international marketing activity of Russian hi-tech companies. However, individual companies can also improve the situation by working more closely with the most disloyal editions.
| 1 | ZDnet | 25 |
| 2 | eWeek (PC Week) | 21 |
| 3 | PC World | 21 |
| 4 | TechNewsWorld | 19 |
| 5 | InfoWorld | 18 |
| 6 | InformationWeek | 18 |
| 7 | Forbes | 13 |
| 8 | MacWorld | 11 |
| 9 | BusinessWeek | 10 |
| 10-11 | Computerworld | 8 |
| 10-11 | Financial Times | 8 |
| 1 | ZDnet | 44 |
| 2 | PC World | 44 |
| 3 | eWeek (PC Week) | 37 |
| 4 | InfoWorld | 37 |
| 5 | Forbes | 36 |
| 6 | TechNewsWorld | 26 |
| 7 | The Hindu | 18 |
| 8 | BBC | 18 |
| 9 | Financial Times | 17 |
| 10-11 | Computerworld | 15 |
| 10-11 | BusinessWeek | 14 |
| Share of positive publications about Russia | Total number of publications | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BusinessWeek | 100% | 10 |
| 2 | The Hindu | 100% | 6 |
| 4 | REUTERS | 100% | 5 |
| 5 | Financial Times | 88% | 8 |
| 6 | Forbes | 85% | 13 |
| 7 | MacWorld | 82% | 11 |
| 8 | Asia Times | 80% | 5 |
| 9 | Computerworld | 75% | 8 |
| 10 | ZDnet | 72% | 25 |
* Only editions with at least 5 publications per year are included in the table
| Share of negative publications about Russia | Total number of publications | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | InformationWeek | 56% | 18 |
| 2 | PC World | 48% | 21 |
| 3 | InfoWorld | 44% | 18 |
| 4 | TechNewsWorld | 42% | 19 |
* Only editions with no less than 5 publications per year are included in the table.
| Share of negative publications about Russia | Total number of publications | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | InformationWeek | 61% | 28 |
| 2 | InfoWorld | 51% | 37 |
| 3 | Network World | 50% | 10 |
| 4 | TechNewsWorld | 50% | 26 |
| 5 | PC World | 48% | 44 |
* Only editions with no less than 8 publications for the last two years are included in the table.
| Share of positive publications about Russia | Total number of publications | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Hindu | 89% | 18 |
| 2 | REUTERS | 89% | 9 |
| 3 | MacWorld | 85% | 13 |
| 4 | Forbes | 83% | 36 |
| 5 | BusinessWeek | 79% | 14 |
| 6 | Financial Times | 76% | 17 |
| 7 | Computerworld | 67% | 15 |
| 8 | eWeek (PC Week) | 65% | 37 |
| 9 | ZDnet | 61% | 44 |
| 10 | BBC | 61% | 18 |
* Only editions with no less than 8 publications for the last two years are included in the table.
The majority of publications about Russian high-tech in foreign mass media were connected to the information security. At the same time, the share of this subject continues to increase in the last three years. Thus foreign readers may begin to think that other IT directions are neglected in Russia - although it is not true. However, similar distortion is natural. Firstly, it is explained by the fact that the mass media pay special attention to information security (to threats and revealed vulnerabilities). Secondly, Russian companies that are engaged in information security matters more actively communicate with foreign journalists than others. Thirdly, the western mass media still consider Russia (along with China) to be the largest source of cyber threats (which reflects an artificially created enemy image rather than the real situation). However the share of publications about the Russian cyber threat significantly reduced over the last 12 months. From now foreign mass media are frightening their citizens with the Russian bugbear far less frequently.
| Share for the period from April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2013 | Growth (+)/reduction (-) of the number of publications | |
|---|---|---|
| Investment attraction, merges and takeovers, cooperation | 4% | -44% |
| Space | 4% | -65% |
| Conditions for hi-tech business in Russia | 2% | -69% |
| Activities of Russian developers and scientists | 16% | +21% |
| Information security | 70% | +35% |
| GLONASS | 1% | +50% |
| Other | 3% |
Dr. Web was most mentioned in the foreign mass media for the last 12 months. Most likely this company’s leadership is temporary. The leadership is connected to the fact that Dr. Web experts managed to identify vulnerabilities in the globally popular software, and this fact raised the interest of the world mass media to the company and to its experts. Almost all articles that mentioned Dr Web were published within 2-3 months.
The second place of Kaspersky Lab (the largest Russian software product exporter) is more natural as the reference to the company was caused by several events - as well as journalists’ resort to its expert estimations. This company was among the leaders in this rating in prior years as well, and we can surely look forward to new publications about it in the future.
The third place of Yandex is connected to their recent IPO that increased foreign mass media interest towards this company. Other Internet companies are mentioned much less often (f.ex. Mail.ru, X-Cart, OZON, and Odnoklassniki – just once each). Totally foreign journalists noted 20 Russian companies, some of which are mainly oriented towards the Russian market.
| 1 | Dr. Web | 52 |
| 2 | Kaspersky Lab | 35 |
| 3 | Yandex | 12 |
| 4 | Group-IB | 6 |
| 5 | Positive Technologies | 4 |
| 6 | Parallels | 4 |
| 7 | ElcomSoft | 3 |
| 8 | i-Free | 2 |
| 9 | Pirate Pay | 2 |
| 10 | Yota | 2 |
| 11 | Elbrus Technologies | 2 |
| 12 | Luxoft | 2 |
| 13 | VKontakte | 2 |
Previous | Next