Microsoft Russia has announced another OEM agreement – this time with computer-to-missiles company IVK. The Russian company has committed to selling a minimum of 3,000 units in 1994 though it may not begin production until the summer. IVK has leased a production line at the Kvant electronics enterprise which is currently being used by IBM Russia to assemble PS/1 computers for the local market. The plan is to assemble both 80386 and 80486 personal computers with domestically manufactured power supply units (local content will be about 5%). The company is aiming for production of 5,000 personal computers per month in 1994. Microsoft now has around 50 of these high volume royalty-based OEM agreements. IVK will preload MS-DOS, Windows and Windows for Workgroups. Microsoft Russia sales manager Nikolay Lioubovnyi says in the last few months more and more OEM customers have been coming to Microsoft to sign agreements. He says this is often not from their own desire to start paying for software but as a result of pressure from the market: their customers are demanding legal software so they then have to come to us, he says. Microsoft now has OEM agreements with around 30 companies for MS DOS – 20 of which are also buying Windows. All of the significant-sized contracts are in the Moscow region.
