Assessing the current state of the industry, the president of the non-profit association of software developers Russoft, Valentin Makarov, noted that although Russian software exports decreased by 12-17% in 2022, the business quickly refocused on new markets. “Software exports to some EAEU countries have grown by up to 10%, and to South and Central American countries by 7-8 times. We see Middle Eastern countries and especially Southeast Asia as promising markets” Makarov said. .
According to the conference participants, for the successful development of individual software products and business in general, Russian companies must enter a highly competitive international market and the revenue structure must aim for a 30% share of international sales.
Aleksey Bogomolov, head of Reksoft Consulting’s Transformation Strategy practice, believes that, taking into account the current sanctions and restrictions, about 15% of the global software market is available to the Russian software business. At the same time, he highlighted 3 promising areas that, even in the context of the global recession, grew more than 30% per year. These are application software for working with artificial intelligence, cloud software, and cybersecurity solutions.
ISPsystem CEO Pavel Guralnik assessed the pace of import substitution in the public sector. According to him, in 2021 the level of import substitution was approximately 30%, but by the end of 2022 it reached 50-60%.
Experts note an explosive growth of interest in its solutions in 2022 not only among state-owned companies, but also in the commercial segment. At the same time, the phrase “it is impossible to achieve 100% import substitution” is heard almost everywhere, and Rustam Rustamov, Deputy General Director of Red Soft, even said that he doubts that by January 1, 2025, the Critical Information Infrastructure Facilities (CII) will be able to switch to 100% Russian software.
Recall that, according to the law, the use of foreign software in critical information infrastructure facilities is prohibited from January 1, 2025.
Commenting on the situation with the shortage of IT specialists, representatives of the top management of Russian software developers noted that more than a third of the employees of international companies that left the Russian Federation in 2022 remained working in Russia. Among the motivation to work in Russian companies, they identified 3 factors: professional ambitions, salary, working conditions.
Russian immigrants from international companies were especially motivated by the possibility of greater personal influence in the creation of a product than in a global international structure.
All representatives of the Russian software business reacted negatively to the idea of decriminalizing the use of licensed software without purchasing and renewing licenses. In his opinion, this will destroy “an enterprise culture that has been developing for years”, and Aleksey Smirnov, director of Bazalt SPO, noted that this can be perceived as permission for outright hacking, and in this case, both the developers of Russian software and their customers will suffer.
