Sun Micro Picks City as Focal Point
Sun Microsystems will expand its operations in St. Petersburg, possibly hiring as many as 200 more staff within the next 10 months, the company said Thursday at a news conference.
Sep 14, 2005
Sun Microsystems will expand its operations in St. Petersburg, possibly hiring as many as 200 more staff within the next 10 months, the company said Thursday at a news conference.
The announcement comes a month after the IT firm’s India Managing Director, Bhaskar Pramanik, identified St. Petersburg among four cities to receive "major investments" in 2006, Forbes magazine reported last month.
Pramanik named India’s Bangalore, the Czech Republic’s Prague, and China’s Beijing as the other three key places for Sun Microsystems to grow out facilities and boost staff.
"I expect that ... by the end of our next financial year, which is the end of next June, [the St. Petersburg center] will number between 350 and 500 staff," said Anya Barski, director of Sun Microsystems’ development center in St. Petersburg, which works mainly on Java-based software.
Barski added that the employee numbers were more likely to be near to the upper marker, although there was no set staff target. She declined to detail the size of investment the computer services firm would divert to enlarge their St. Petersburg business.
James Gosling, the creator of the Java computer code and currently the chief technical officer at Sun Microsystems, visited St. Petersburg on Thursday especially to take part in the conference.
"There were several reasons why we decided to focus on St. Petersburg," Gosling said. "Above all, it is the city’s underemployed talent ... we see a lot of potential here."
Sun Microsystems has not been the only IT major to put faith in the skills of St. Petersburg programmers, which has put a strain on the availability of human resources, as well as inflating wages in the industry.
Intel has five research and development centers in Russia, which employ over 1,000 staff — the chip-makers biggest software programming operation outside the U.S.
"The growth of [an IT company in Russia] is linked to availability. Now there are very few programmers in St. Petersburg that have over five years experience and are looking for work," said Igor Kaloshin, head of Intel in St. Petersburg.
Director of Kelly Services IT Resources in St. Petersburg, Yevgenia Delnova, said that simply finding another 200 programmers in St. Petersburg "will not be noticeable. The problem is Sun Microsystems is not the only major company looking for new staff."
When 10 companies seek about 100 or 200 new employees, the effect is a rise in salaries, especially for the in-demand Java and C++ based programming, Delnova said.
It is imperative that St. Petersburg avoid this knock-on effect if it is to stay competitive with Chinese and Indian IT companies, Kaloshin said.
Maria Chernobrovkina, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in St. Petersburg, said "the city’s IT firms are all aware of the issue and are trying to act on it."
In part, most global majors like Intel, Motorola, among others work directly with St. Petersburg universities to prepare students for the real work environment.
Sun Microsystem expects to follow the same route, "expand[ing] the relations we have with the city’s universities. We have already begun a student internship program," Barski said.
The U.S.-based firm also plans to work with the city’s technological colleges in terms of structuring the academic curriculum, offering some grants and other benefits, "although this is still an issue for the future," Barski said.
"The potential of Russian youth is massive, but they have no confidence," Kaloshin said, adding that cooperation between academia and business could help to change this.
The announcement comes a month after the IT firm’s India Managing Director, Bhaskar Pramanik, identified St. Petersburg among four cities to receive "major investments" in 2006, Forbes magazine reported last month.
Pramanik named India’s Bangalore, the Czech Republic’s Prague, and China’s Beijing as the other three key places for Sun Microsystems to grow out facilities and boost staff.
"I expect that ... by the end of our next financial year, which is the end of next June, [the St. Petersburg center] will number between 350 and 500 staff," said Anya Barski, director of Sun Microsystems’ development center in St. Petersburg, which works mainly on Java-based software.
Barski added that the employee numbers were more likely to be near to the upper marker, although there was no set staff target. She declined to detail the size of investment the computer services firm would divert to enlarge their St. Petersburg business.
James Gosling, the creator of the Java computer code and currently the chief technical officer at Sun Microsystems, visited St. Petersburg on Thursday especially to take part in the conference.
"There were several reasons why we decided to focus on St. Petersburg," Gosling said. "Above all, it is the city’s underemployed talent ... we see a lot of potential here."
Sun Microsystems has not been the only IT major to put faith in the skills of St. Petersburg programmers, which has put a strain on the availability of human resources, as well as inflating wages in the industry.
Intel has five research and development centers in Russia, which employ over 1,000 staff — the chip-makers biggest software programming operation outside the U.S.
"The growth of [an IT company in Russia] is linked to availability. Now there are very few programmers in St. Petersburg that have over five years experience and are looking for work," said Igor Kaloshin, head of Intel in St. Petersburg.
Director of Kelly Services IT Resources in St. Petersburg, Yevgenia Delnova, said that simply finding another 200 programmers in St. Petersburg "will not be noticeable. The problem is Sun Microsystems is not the only major company looking for new staff."
When 10 companies seek about 100 or 200 new employees, the effect is a rise in salaries, especially for the in-demand Java and C++ based programming, Delnova said.
It is imperative that St. Petersburg avoid this knock-on effect if it is to stay competitive with Chinese and Indian IT companies, Kaloshin said.
Maria Chernobrovkina, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in St. Petersburg, said "the city’s IT firms are all aware of the issue and are trying to act on it."
In part, most global majors like Intel, Motorola, among others work directly with St. Petersburg universities to prepare students for the real work environment.
Sun Microsystem expects to follow the same route, "expand[ing] the relations we have with the city’s universities. We have already begun a student internship program," Barski said.
The U.S.-based firm also plans to work with the city’s technological colleges in terms of structuring the academic curriculum, offering some grants and other benefits, "although this is still an issue for the future," Barski said.
"The potential of Russian youth is massive, but they have no confidence," Kaloshin said, adding that cooperation between academia and business could help to change this.