The last stand of the Russian mainframe continues: the Minsk, Belorus-based Computer Equipment Production Association, Minskoye PO VT, has put into production the ES-1230 mainframe, which is five times faster than the previous model produced by the association, which is an OEM customer of IBM Corp; power consumption has been reduced by 95% and the ES-1230 occupies 10% of the area taken up by its predecessor, leaving one to wonder just what kind of a monster that machine was.
Kvasar Mikro, possibly the Ukraine’s largest computer vendor, has begun selling Hewlett-Packard Co personal computers: the company began distributing them at the beginning of 1995 and it already sells Hewlett-Packard printers and is a Compaq Computer Corp authorised dealer, but the majority of the Kvasar Mikro’s sales are of Intel Corp-branded personal computers.
Hewlett-Packard Co has decided to increase its presence in the regions of the Russian Federation and will open five or six service centres in Russian cities during 1995.
Moscow-based distribution company R-Style Investment Ltd, RSI, has signed a distribution agreement with Minnesota Mining & Manufacture Co, 3M, on computer disks, office equipment and other 3M kit.
Russian computer retail giant R-Style has opened a $4m, 290,000 square foot computer centre on Dekabristov Street in Moscow, complete with trade and demonstration rooms; the company estimates its 1994 turnover was around $110m.
Lotus Development Corp will introduce six levels of business partner in Russia: at the moment the network of Lotus distributors consists of seven firms in Russia, two in the Ukraine, two in Belorus and three in Central Asia; after authorisation, 200 to 300 firms in the former Soviet Union will be partners of Lotus Russia and by year-end, the company estimates there will be 50 to 60 official partners.
St Petersburg-based A/O Svetlana, a former defence industry enterprise and now a holding company, is planning to create a multimedia company that will produce computer compact disks: investment auctions will be arranged to raise the funds needed.
Cisco Systems Inc is to open a Moscow office next month, and has has appointed Remi Baudin to be the new general manager responsible for Russia: the distributors Cisco has lined up so far are AMT, CSS, LVS Corp, Unitech (Moscow) and Microtest and Quorus in Ekaterinburg.
IBM Corp demonstrated the beta version of OS/2 Warp at Comtek ’95 and also launched the Aptiva home computer onto the Russian market.
Kami-Nsk, a division of STC Kami in Novosibirsk, has created facilities that will make it one of the largest dealers in the Siberian region: STC Kami has provided Kami-Nsk with a $450,000 loan for the construction of service centre and warehouse for storing computer equipment; as a result, the monthly turnover of Kami-Nsk has now increased $200,000 from $40,000, and the company has started to create its own dealer network; Kami-Nsk is a joint venture between Laiks Pro, a Kami dealer, and Kami Corp.
Over 600 exhibitors took part in Comtek 95 – the largest in the event’s history: the show took the entire 360,000 square feet of the Krasnaya Presnya Exhibition centre.
Canon Computer Inc has now opened a Moscow office this month: the Japanese company has a very competitive line of inkjet printers but right now many dealers source them from a variety of different countries.
Lexmark International Inc has now officially appointed Technoserv as it third party service partner in Russia and all Lexmark printers sold in Russia now come with a three-year guarantee: Lexmark now has 15 dealers including Computer Mechanics, Lamport and The North West Group; the IBM Corp refugee also now has an office in Moscow.
Comstar Telecommunications has introduced a 2,000-line telephone exchange in Nikulino, Moscow.
Moscow software publisher Microinform has signed an agreement with the assembly firm Sunrise, on the pre-installation of the Lexicon Russian word pro
cessing software on Sunrise computers: the agreement is for 500 copies, although the actual number of copies will depend on demand; Sunrise bundles no other software with its computers and sells MS-DOS as an optional extra.
Notebook computer specialist Bely Veter claims to have sold the five millionth Toshiba Corp notebook in Moscow during its recent Toshiba week: Bely Veter is aggressively marketing itself as a builder of the brand name notebook market in Russia, much to Compaq Computer Corp’s irritation – Compaq reckons that the company is still selling grey imports of its notebooks.
Hewlett-Packard Russia has established a telecommunications division and it intends to take more active stance in this market in Russia.
Sonar, a research and production centre in Krasnodar, Russia has won a tender for development of an information system for the Russian Committee on State Property Management, Goskomimushchestvo: Sonar’s will be used to manage Goskomimushchestvo’s register which contains data on 70,000 enterprises.
Moscow-based computer assembly firm Stins Coman says it sold 4,000 Amata home computers in the fourth quarter of 1994, which was substantially less than it had hoped for.
Moscow-based Optimum, a Russian commercial bank, has signed a contract with Lipman Electronics, based in Israel, on delivery of 2,000 Smart Card payment terminals: similar terminals were supplied by Lipman to STB Card, the magnetic card venture of the Stolichny bank.
A/O Moskovsky Mezhdugorodny i Mezhdunarodny Telephone, MTT, the operator providing inter-city and international telephone access in Russia, will auction 22% of its shares to any investor prepared to spend at least $36m on modernising Moscow’s communication network: the investment programme assumes that the investor will arrange the supply of equipment and software; MTT is majority owned by Rostelecom.
SK Communications International and PC Magazine/Russian edition have launched a monthly publication called Russian Reseller: the first edition had a first run of 10,000 to 20,000 copies; CompuTerra has also launched a monthly magazine for end users called CompuTerra Direct but this one appears to be made up entirely of advertisements.
Russian president Boris Yeltsin finally signed the Russian Law on Communications in February.
Tripp Lite has signed an agreement with Kiev, Ukraine-based ULIS Systems under which ULIS, founded earlier this year, will become Tripp Lite’s distributor: ULIS is one of two Dell Computer Corp distributors in the Ukraine and Tripp Lite has at least two other firms in the republic selling its kit.
Steepler Ltd, the Moscow based distributor and integrator of Hewlett-Packard Co kit, has been awarded a contract worth $950,000 by the Moscow Local Telephone Network company, MGTS: Steepler will supply the hardware for a billing system in the first round of a two-stage bidding process; four Hewlett-Packard distributors submitted bids along with one Compaq Computer Corp dealer; during round two, MGTS will choose a system software vendor.
VimpelCom, operator of the Bee Line AMPS network in Moscow, has reached roaming agreements with AMPS operators in Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod, St Petersburg and Chelyabinsk.
The Business Software Alliance has released it software piracy estimates for Europe, and it calculates that 94% of all the programs in circulation in the Russian Federation are pirated copies – but it gets worse: the rate in the former Soviet Union excluding the Russian Federation is guessed to be 97%.
