Of course, being at a shareware conference in Russia is the ideal way
to find out what is going on in the Russian marketplace.
There are really 2 aspects to this: What we can buy from Russia
(supply) and what we can sell in Russia (demand).
Supply
I already learned last year that the shareware world is very
different in Russia from Western Europe and the US.
In Western Europe and the US, shareware is developed by single people,
sometimes as a hobby, or by very small companies with maybe 2 or 3
employees. There are of course exceptions, but this is a general
rule.
In Russia, shareware is big business. The normal size of the companies
is a lot bigger. You could say that 10 employees would be a typical
number, while it can be much more.
These companies are also doing incredibly good: One person told me that
their company was making 300,000 sales per year. At 30$/license, that
means they make almost 10 million dollar in sales per year!
In Europe and the US, we expect people to go to shareware
conferences out of their own interest.
In Russia, this is different: People go there because their boss pays
them to do so.
Outsourcing
One particularly interesting topic that many people want to know about
is outsourcing in Russia. I may need to write a separate entry about
that, but will say a few words about it here.
Russia is probably the number 2 outsourcing country in the world, after
India.
In Russia, you will almost certainly get better quality.
But, Russia as a low wages country seems to be a thing of the past.
You may still find low wages in small towns, but the serious companies
in big cities (Moscow, Novosibirsk) will ask wages that are almost as
high as in the West. Remember that these cities are also expensive to
live in, and that prices are also similar to prices in the West.
If you are looking for low wages outsourcing these days, and don't want
to go to countries like India, you might want to go to the other former
USSR countries. I heard the lowest prices ever quoted by a Kazachstan
company that was recommended to me by a current client of theirs.
Demand
According to the latest BSA study,
Russia is the number 5 country for pirated software, and 87% of
software used in Russia is illegal.
There are only 4 countries
doing worse, with China, Vietnam and Ukraine having over 90% illegal
software.
Because of this, many people think the Russian market is not worthwhile
and ignore it completely.
But there is another side to the story.
First of all, the Russian legislation on intellectual property rights
has been dramatically changed, and using illegal software is now taken
seriously. There are also organisations such as Russian Shield trying
to enforce intellectual property rights on software. Because of this,
the situation has improved very much and will continue to improve.
But let's look at it a different way. Today 13% of software in Russia
is legal, and this is increasing. I was told that today, Russia is the
second largest market for software in he world, preceded only by the
US. I don't know how accurate this number is and have my serious
doubts, but it is probably true for the people who told me this.
If you are among those who are neglecting the Russian market, now is
the time to think about making a change.
This is also very clear from the success of the Russian registration
service SoftKey.