Software Development Summit 2008: Where the Industry Meets
The Eighth annual international summit of software developing companies Software Development Summit 2008 closed in St. Petersburg in a newly built SPA-hotel “Holiday Club St. Petersburg” on 3 June.
Jun 17, 2008
The organizers of the summit were Russian association of software developing companies RUSSOFT and marketing and event agency Fort-Ross. The summit was organized under the auspices of the Ministry for Economic Development of the Russian Federation.
This year’s summit unlike the previous seven was oriented at all the segments of software industry and incorporated exports and local market, software outsourcing services and licensed software, large and small-size businesses. It should be noted that many of the previous summits were oriented mainly at large companies offering their outsourcing services beyond Russia. The changes made gained very positive feedback from the summit participants. "Events like SDS 2008 are very important for Russian software industry. It’s the place of knowledge exchange, meeting new partners and, what is most important, it is some kind of "synchronization" which needs to happen regularly in the industry aimed to take a visible place in the economy. Microsoft in Russia actively supports independent software vendors. We consider the business model of making commercial software based on intellectual property is most scalable and effective. And we’re glad that this year organizers of SDS 2008 have placed a significant emphasis on this part of the industry." Sergey Eremin, Project manager, Local Software Economy initiative of Microsoft Rus said.
During the two program days more than 150 delegates from Russia, Belarus, Finland, Germany, Italy, Ukraine and the USA took part in the summit. Among the participants there were representatives of such companies as Arcadia, AT Software, Auriga, BCC Company, Bercut, DataArt, Digital Design, EMC, Exigen Services, Fast Reports, Forum Nokia, HP, Intel, Internet-Frigate, Luxoft, Microsoft, Reksoft, SJ Labs, SoftKey, SPEEREO, Spirit Telecom, Tekama, Vorotko Corporation and many others. Also Russian Universities participated in the summit.
The platinum sponsor of Software Development Summit 2008 became the newly merged AT-Software, the gold sponsors were Forum Nokia and Microsoft. Forum Nokia acted also as the sponsor of the gala-night. The silver sponsor of the summit was "SKB Kontur". SoftKey also became a sponsor of the summit. Also companies DataArt, Exigen Software and Vorotko Corporation acted as section sponsors, and D-Link was the technical sponsor of SDS 2008.
It should be noted that besides participation in the program of the summit and panel speeches many of the companies decided to show their new products and services on the booths of the exhibition organized within the framework of the summit – these are Forum Nokia, AT-Software, Park Media Consulting, Exigen Services, Vorotko Corporation, «SKB Kontur», C’T Magazin fur Computertechnik, Digital Design.
Alexey Filimonov, Head of Outsourcing Department at Digital Design commented on the company’s participation in the exhibition: "For Digital Design participation in Software Development Summit became an excellent opportunity to exhibit new projects for leading Russian and foreign companies and to discuss new business trends with colleagues. Digital Design specialists demonstrated solutions for data analysis, information security, corporate portals, and automation of unique business-processes. We would like to thank organizers of Software Development Summit for holding interesting meetings and discussions, and also for cooperation in establishing business contacts which we hope will lead to long-term and mutually beneficial partnership."
Gathering such a number of various players of the local software market in one place became possible thanks to the diversified program that included plenary sessions for discussions of questions interesting for the whole industry and specialized branch panel sessions for each segment of the industry. It should be stressed that the program included panels on investment issues and labour market – hot topics for most of the segments of Russian software market.
"It is very important that the program of Software Development Summit 2008 provides discussion on the questions of personnel training, for very often the proficiency of the staff determines the success of a company. As a representative of high school I find it highly effective meet managers of various successful Russian IT-companies and discuss the prospects for efficient cooperation. I am confident that a wider presence of Russian universities would be extremely useful for Software Development Summit." – Prof. Victor Gergel, the Dean of Computing Mathematics and Cybernetics faculty of the State university of Nizhny Novgorod said.
"Branch associations and forums for such a fast-growing industry as Information Technologies are of special importance – they act as a platform for discussion of the most vexed questions, coordination of complex issues and development of market conduct stereotypes. SoftKey plays the role of an interlink between two branches of IT industry – software market and E-commerce – and is always an active participant in development of the industry. Therefore the participation in SDS 2008 was a good way for us to raise the issues of our concern, to share our opinions and to meet interesting people." – CEO of Internet-supermarket SoftKey Felix Muchnik said.
A real bombshell was the key-note speech by Ilya Ponomarev, the head of the technologies sub-commission of the State Duma of the Russian Federation who highlighted the prospects of the development of the Russian legislation in the sphere of the innovative economy.
Also the key-note speakers of Software Development Summit were:
A must-know fact about SDS 208 is that the second day of the summit was combined with the program of Russian CIO Summit St. Petersburg. This gave the software developers the opportunity to meet their Russian clients – managers of IT departments of enterprises from various industry branches.
"The summit of RUSSOFT was up to the knocker as usual. The new hotel with lots of foreign guests who would constantly mix with the crowds, good meals, interesting program and above all the opportunity to communicate with the colleagues. The conclusion can be made that the event is necessary for the experience interchange, for discussion of the common problems and the methods of their solution and for human contact, of course. Obviously the summit must be marketed exactly this way, without attempts to make it a show for client attraction. It is necessary to involve more practitioners who can help in finding answers to questions we cannot solve. I would like to stress that the involvement of such specialist in slaes development as Harald Horgen (York Group) is a vivid example of a format Software Development Summit should achieve." – Arcadia president Arcady Khotin shared his views on the summit.
One of the innovations in the workflow of the summit was the implementation of specialized SMS-system that enabled the delegates send messages to the organizers’ short mobile numbers. Powered by "SMS Traffic" this system helped in notify
This year’s summit unlike the previous seven was oriented at all the segments of software industry and incorporated exports and local market, software outsourcing services and licensed software, large and small-size businesses. It should be noted that many of the previous summits were oriented mainly at large companies offering their outsourcing services beyond Russia. The changes made gained very positive feedback from the summit participants. "Events like SDS 2008 are very important for Russian software industry. It’s the place of knowledge exchange, meeting new partners and, what is most important, it is some kind of "synchronization" which needs to happen regularly in the industry aimed to take a visible place in the economy. Microsoft in Russia actively supports independent software vendors. We consider the business model of making commercial software based on intellectual property is most scalable and effective. And we’re glad that this year organizers of SDS 2008 have placed a significant emphasis on this part of the industry." Sergey Eremin, Project manager, Local Software Economy initiative of Microsoft Rus said.
During the two program days more than 150 delegates from Russia, Belarus, Finland, Germany, Italy, Ukraine and the USA took part in the summit. Among the participants there were representatives of such companies as Arcadia, AT Software, Auriga, BCC Company, Bercut, DataArt, Digital Design, EMC, Exigen Services, Fast Reports, Forum Nokia, HP, Intel, Internet-Frigate, Luxoft, Microsoft, Reksoft, SJ Labs, SoftKey, SPEEREO, Spirit Telecom, Tekama, Vorotko Corporation and many others. Also Russian Universities participated in the summit.
The platinum sponsor of Software Development Summit 2008 became the newly merged AT-Software, the gold sponsors were Forum Nokia and Microsoft. Forum Nokia acted also as the sponsor of the gala-night. The silver sponsor of the summit was "SKB Kontur". SoftKey also became a sponsor of the summit. Also companies DataArt, Exigen Software and Vorotko Corporation acted as section sponsors, and D-Link was the technical sponsor of SDS 2008.
It should be noted that besides participation in the program of the summit and panel speeches many of the companies decided to show their new products and services on the booths of the exhibition organized within the framework of the summit – these are Forum Nokia, AT-Software, Park Media Consulting, Exigen Services, Vorotko Corporation, «SKB Kontur», C’T Magazin fur Computertechnik, Digital Design.
Alexey Filimonov, Head of Outsourcing Department at Digital Design commented on the company’s participation in the exhibition: "For Digital Design participation in Software Development Summit became an excellent opportunity to exhibit new projects for leading Russian and foreign companies and to discuss new business trends with colleagues. Digital Design specialists demonstrated solutions for data analysis, information security, corporate portals, and automation of unique business-processes. We would like to thank organizers of Software Development Summit for holding interesting meetings and discussions, and also for cooperation in establishing business contacts which we hope will lead to long-term and mutually beneficial partnership."
Gathering such a number of various players of the local software market in one place became possible thanks to the diversified program that included plenary sessions for discussions of questions interesting for the whole industry and specialized branch panel sessions for each segment of the industry. It should be stressed that the program included panels on investment issues and labour market – hot topics for most of the segments of Russian software market.
"It is very important that the program of Software Development Summit 2008 provides discussion on the questions of personnel training, for very often the proficiency of the staff determines the success of a company. As a representative of high school I find it highly effective meet managers of various successful Russian IT-companies and discuss the prospects for efficient cooperation. I am confident that a wider presence of Russian universities would be extremely useful for Software Development Summit." – Prof. Victor Gergel, the Dean of Computing Mathematics and Cybernetics faculty of the State university of Nizhny Novgorod said.
"Branch associations and forums for such a fast-growing industry as Information Technologies are of special importance – they act as a platform for discussion of the most vexed questions, coordination of complex issues and development of market conduct stereotypes. SoftKey plays the role of an interlink between two branches of IT industry – software market and E-commerce – and is always an active participant in development of the industry. Therefore the participation in SDS 2008 was a good way for us to raise the issues of our concern, to share our opinions and to meet interesting people." – CEO of Internet-supermarket SoftKey Felix Muchnik said.
A real bombshell was the key-note speech by Ilya Ponomarev, the head of the technologies sub-commission of the State Duma of the Russian Federation who highlighted the prospects of the development of the Russian legislation in the sphere of the innovative economy.
Also the key-note speakers of Software Development Summit were:
- Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. August-Wilhelm Scheer, President of BITKOM Association, who described the major trends and perspectives for German-Russian cooperation on German ICT market.
- Alec Miloslavsky, President of Exigen Services, who made a forecast for software development industry in 2020.
- Peter Schumacher, President & CEO, Value Leadership Group Inc. – highlighted the new competitive paradigm in European IT services
A must-know fact about SDS 208 is that the second day of the summit was combined with the program of Russian CIO Summit St. Petersburg. This gave the software developers the opportunity to meet their Russian clients – managers of IT departments of enterprises from various industry branches.
"The summit of RUSSOFT was up to the knocker as usual. The new hotel with lots of foreign guests who would constantly mix with the crowds, good meals, interesting program and above all the opportunity to communicate with the colleagues. The conclusion can be made that the event is necessary for the experience interchange, for discussion of the common problems and the methods of their solution and for human contact, of course. Obviously the summit must be marketed exactly this way, without attempts to make it a show for client attraction. It is necessary to involve more practitioners who can help in finding answers to questions we cannot solve. I would like to stress that the involvement of such specialist in slaes development as Harald Horgen (York Group) is a vivid example of a format Software Development Summit should achieve." – Arcadia president Arcady Khotin shared his views on the summit.
One of the innovations in the workflow of the summit was the implementation of specialized SMS-system that enabled the delegates send messages to the organizers’ short mobile numbers. Powered by "SMS Traffic" this system helped in notify