Russian systems integrator Information Technologies Co says in early 1995 its Smart City project should move from pilot stage to full implementation: in partnership with US company Product Technologies Inc, the Russian has supplied Purneftegas with a cashless payment system for the Gubkinsky settlement in the Tyumen region, where almost everybody works for Purneftegas; the system involves 30,000 Smart Cards, 50 point-of-sale terminals and several automatic teller machines; employees are paid directly into their bank accounts and are then able to load their Smart Cards with credits from their bank accounts and the cards can then be used in shops in the town. – o – Compagnie des Machines Bull SA will create a consignment warehouse in Moscow to improve delivery times for its Zenith Data Systems portable computer products: Sergey Semenov, personal computer division manager, says he expects sales of Zenith computers to increase to $9m in 1994 from $3m in 1993.
Moscow based distributor and systems integrator Lamport Co Ltd says 1994 turnover is expected to be $140m: computer games sales were expected to reach $65m in 1994, up from $16m in 1993; peripherals and personal computers were expected to hit $65m last year, up from $18m; multimedia $8m, up from $3m; and software $2m, up from $1m; the company has appointed Andrey Zotov, formerly technical director of Borland International Inc in Russia, as vice-president for business development, a new position aimed at channeling investment to the dealer channel and to support the company’s business partners. – o – Moscow-based LVS Systems has received a major, although unspecified, investment from New York-based Providence Capital, whose company president Herbert Denton said, We see our role as more than providing equity – we will provide them with assistance with financial reporting, defining their corporate structure and marketing; Providence Capital is a company focused on long term high-yielding investments in Russia and according to Leonid Boguslavsky, president of LVS, the firm’s turnover has quadrupled each year since its formation in 1991; turnover for 1994 is expected to hit $23m; $7.5m in sales of Compaq computers and $6m of Oracle goods.
IBM Corp is assembling the discontinued ValuePoint personal computers at the Kvant plant in Zelenograd near Moscow: up until October, the old PS/1s were assembled there; IBM says it is also evaluating the assembly of its RS/6000 Unix workstations in Russia but is talking to several plants as well as Kvant.
The Russian version of Macintosh System 7.5 is now available, several months after the original English version was released in August: it is only available bundled with Apple Computer Inc computers and cannot be bought separately as it can in Europe or the US: only people that have bought Apple computers through the company’s former Russian marketeer, RUI ap, are entitled to receive the upgrade.
IBM Corp dealer and system integrator Radom has opened a Moscow showroom at Bol Sadovaya 2/46.
