MBL ComputerLand has won a $1.25m contract with the Moscow Central Telephone Node. Hewlett-Packard Co also recently won a contract to supply a billing system to Intertelekom – the body responsible for all the international business of the Russian Ministry of Communications. Telephone billing systems are a significant growth market as telephone operators are only now starting to use billing as a means of raising cash to modernise the telephone network. The MBL ComputerLand deal was for about 200 80486 and 80386 Compaq Computer Corp machines with Santa Cruz Operation Inc Unix and NetWare. Development of the billing system for the Tagansky telephone exchange, is being done by the Node and MBL ComputerLand is simply the hardware supplier. Account manager Boris Chernogorsky says the system covers only about 5% of the required capacity, and he hopes other orders will follow. The order was won against Steepler, IBM Corp, and Hewlett-Packard, with price, quality and support the main criteria.
