Open source for government & business red hot in Russia

Flush with rocketing oil and gas income, capital investment in IT is also on the rise in Russia. FOSS has taken more than a minor role, and could offer strong competitive advantage for home grown integrators while depriving CSS vendors of a new clients. This is not a fluke, it’s a trend worldwide that is only magnified by rapid pace of upgrades in Russia.

Recent interest towards FOSS from the Russian government has boosted commercial activity in this field. No longer than a year ago there was no single large company that would say it is capable of doing FOSS system integration projects. Now there are three, and the number will probably grow.
Nobody is particularly sure about how to do business with FOSS, but it is already evident that it can be done somehow. That is why the larger ones are jumping on the bandwagon simply not to be late.

First to come was Armada (Russian), a holding which is better known for its sibling company named RBС (Russian). It succeeded to unite in Fall 2007 the majority of the local Linux vendors, namely ALT Linux, Linux-Online (Russian), Linux Ink (Russian) and VNIINS (the latter specializes on producing operating systems for the military needs) in its bid on the project of the Ministry of Education that, if successful, could become the largest migration to FOSS in world’s secondary education. (Roberto Galoppini and Linux Today)