Overtaking India
Russia is fully capable of moving up among the world leaders in IT development.
Feb 16, 2004
You would have to be almost totally technologically out of it these days not to know that India is the world's leader in Internet Technology (IT) development. Thus, in 2002, India exported software products worth between USD 7.6 billion and 8.2 billion. As noted by Valentin Makarov, president of Consortium 'Fort Ross,' during the recent Global Technology Forum held in Saint Petersburg, comparable Russian exports last year topped USD 500 million. 'Productivity growth for Russian Internet companies in 2003 averaged 40%,' Makarov said, 'as Russia rose from seventh place [in 2001, according to the Gartner Group] to third place worldwide on certain parameters, trailing India and Ireland.'
Global Technology Forum, which was meeting for the first time in Saint Petersburg, seeks to be a venue for business contacts between Russian and foreign IT companies.
It might appear that the sales gap between India and Russia is enormous, but Forum participants think Russia is fully capable of moving up among the world leaders in IT development. 'Russia is like the bicycle racer positioned just behind the leader,' said Stuart Robbins, founder and executive director of CIO Collective. 'The leader has to overcome air resistance, while the second rider sees and learns from all the leader's misjudgments and awaits the moment to jump ahead and win.' As Robbins put it, a few years ago India's cheap labor supply attracted American orders for IT development, but problems arose and there has been some rethinking about India. In short, India has been unable to bring its product testing up to the demands of the American market, having failed to bridge the gap between the cultures of East and West, and Indian designers have encountered great difficulties in managing their projects, achieving exact algorithmic conformance and meeting delivery schedules.
CIO Collective is an international society of top managers of leading IT companies as well as the IT directors of major enterprises. CIO Collective sees its mission as stimulating the development of information technologies through cooperation and exchanges of experience among the leaders in the field and as a lobbying organization for the interests of the IT market.
'The crisis in the American IT market, which was too much concerned with stock market numbers, resulted in approximately 40% of CIO Collective's member-companies either changing their profiles in the last three years or going out of business. That kind of situation made it inevitable that we would step up attention to the markets of developing countries, but focusing on Indian producers is a thing of the past,' Robbins said. 'Russia could well be the new India in IT, if three Russian programmers were willing to work for the price of one. To make it to the top, however, Russia will have to learn from India's mistakes.'
Eugene Goland, president of DataArt, said: 'Russia has an indisputable advantage over Asian countries like India and China in its geographic and cultural closeness to the West. And the center of Russian programming ought to be Saint Petersburg, with the superiority of its institutions of higher education and its vast reserves of talented developers working for much less than is possible in Moscow.'
Andrey Narvsky, a member of the US Chamber of Commerce in Saint Petersburg, agreed. 'The Northern capital has a unique educational base, with students from the Institute of Precision Mechanics and Optics and the state university regularly winning world programming competitions. There are more than 200 IT companies in the city, employing more than 5,000 people, most of whom are experienced programmers,' Narvsky said. Those Petersburg firms number among their partners and clients, he said, such world high-tech leaders as Borland, LG, Lucent, Motorola and Sun. The biggest part of Saint Petersburg company orders (37%) comes from customers in the United States and Canada.
Makarov, of Consortium 'Fort Ross,' said: 'Russia's main advantage in the world IT market is its educational system and
At the press service of the Ministry of Industry and Science, Rosbalt was told that the government is giving increased attention to supporting and bringing new ideas to life and that the development of Russian IT-technologies will be a priority for the Cabinet of ministers.
Translated by Howard Goldfinger.
Global Technology Forum, which was meeting for the first time in Saint Petersburg, seeks to be a venue for business contacts between Russian and foreign IT companies.
It might appear that the sales gap between India and Russia is enormous, but Forum participants think Russia is fully capable of moving up among the world leaders in IT development. 'Russia is like the bicycle racer positioned just behind the leader,' said Stuart Robbins, founder and executive director of CIO Collective. 'The leader has to overcome air resistance, while the second rider sees and learns from all the leader's misjudgments and awaits the moment to jump ahead and win.' As Robbins put it, a few years ago India's cheap labor supply attracted American orders for IT development, but problems arose and there has been some rethinking about India. In short, India has been unable to bring its product testing up to the demands of the American market, having failed to bridge the gap between the cultures of East and West, and Indian designers have encountered great difficulties in managing their projects, achieving exact algorithmic conformance and meeting delivery schedules.
CIO Collective is an international society of top managers of leading IT companies as well as the IT directors of major enterprises. CIO Collective sees its mission as stimulating the development of information technologies through cooperation and exchanges of experience among the leaders in the field and as a lobbying organization for the interests of the IT market.
'The crisis in the American IT market, which was too much concerned with stock market numbers, resulted in approximately 40% of CIO Collective's member-companies either changing their profiles in the last three years or going out of business. That kind of situation made it inevitable that we would step up attention to the markets of developing countries, but focusing on Indian producers is a thing of the past,' Robbins said. 'Russia could well be the new India in IT, if three Russian programmers were willing to work for the price of one. To make it to the top, however, Russia will have to learn from India's mistakes.'
Eugene Goland, president of DataArt, said: 'Russia has an indisputable advantage over Asian countries like India and China in its geographic and cultural closeness to the West. And the center of Russian programming ought to be Saint Petersburg, with the superiority of its institutions of higher education and its vast reserves of talented developers working for much less than is possible in Moscow.'
Andrey Narvsky, a member of the US Chamber of Commerce in Saint Petersburg, agreed. 'The Northern capital has a unique educational base, with students from the Institute of Precision Mechanics and Optics and the state university regularly winning world programming competitions. There are more than 200 IT companies in the city, employing more than 5,000 people, most of whom are experienced programmers,' Narvsky said. Those Petersburg firms number among their partners and clients, he said, such world high-tech leaders as Borland, LG, Lucent, Motorola and Sun. The biggest part of Saint Petersburg company orders (37%) comes from customers in the United States and Canada.
Makarov, of Consortium 'Fort Ross,' said: 'Russia's main advantage in the world IT market is its educational system and
At the press service of the Ministry of Industry and Science, Rosbalt was told that the government is giving increased attention to supporting and bringing new ideas to life and that the development of Russian IT-technologies will be a priority for the Cabinet of ministers.
Translated by Howard Goldfinger.