Software Development Summit 2008

Russian software development industry continues its way of steady development. The industry export alone has exceeded $2 B out of appr. $5 B of the software products and services delivered altogether in 2007.

Russian providers of licensed software have enhanced even more their positions in a number of IT-sectors (CBOSS, Kaspersky Labs, ABBYY, SPIRIT DSP, PROMT, SW-Soft). Providers of software development services have reached leading positions in Eastern and Central Europe (Luxoft, EPAM Systems, STAR Software, Mera, Rhonda, Auriga, Reksoft). Leading local market players in software development (1C, ICL, Digital Design, Monolit, Solvo, Astrosoft) have been actively cooperating and competing with international corporations on the Russian market.

The core of the industry is united under the colors of RUSSOFT Association. RUSSOFT is an active lobbyist of the industry interests in the Government of Russia and in the State Duma. New favorable legislation, implementation of the Free Economic Zones, Venture Funds and Technoparks are being supported by RUSSOFT and by other Associations. All these State Programs will inevitably lead to creation of new favorable conditions for development of the economy based on Innovations where Information Technologies will play the major role.

All this fast growing software development industry in full will be presented at the 8th annual Conference and Exhibition called SDS 2008 (Software Development Summit) which will take place in St Petersburg on June 2-4, 2008.

Leading international experts in the IT will share their views on the present situation in software development in Russia and CIS countries. Governmental top officials and leading lawyers will discuss the present legal environment and impact of the implementation of the State policy on innovations, IT support and higher education in a dialogue with the business community. All major Russian players in both licensed software and software development outsourcing services sectors will participate in the Summit in order to share their best practices in project and quality management, in HR and personnel retention.

Small and Middle size Russian businesses will be largely welcomed to participate in order to meet Business Angels and State Early Stage Venture Funds as well as to present opportunities to big software companies who are interested to find sub-contractors or partners for mergers or acquisitions.

SDS 2008 as the largest gathering of the Russian speaking software development Community (we plan to gather 500 top managers of software development companies from Russia and CIS countries!) will inevitably attract those from abroad who are looking to find reliable partners:

• for product development or for software development outsourcing,
• for distribution of effective licensed software from Russia abroad of for distribution and customization of their own software in the Russian market,
• for creating captive centers for software development in Russia or for outsourcing R&D studies to the Russian HighTech Institutions.

In order to be interesting for all the software development community altogether, SDS 2008 will become a kind of a Fair where everybody will find both

1. Satisfaction of their interest to learn better the present situation in the market:
   • get access to information about the State regulation of the IT market and about situation in the professional education,
   • meet and hear real Guru in the field of the Software development as well as to meet practically all Russian leaders in that field in order to share best practices in PM, QA and HR,
2. Practical specialized activities aimed at satisfying marketing needs of different sectors of the software development community:
   • ExecutEVE – an effective match-making event for potential clients from the list of Fortune 1000 and for software development outsourcing service providers from Russia and CIS countries,
   • technology panels and technology exhibition where best practices and new technologies presented by local and international vendors will be introduced to the managers of Russian software development companies,
   • master-classes with leading World software distribution chains (such as The York Group) and with the World leaders in creation and implementation of modern PM and QA (such as Carnegie Mellon University),
   • match-making subcontracting sessions devoted to forging links between small outsourcing companies and big and middle sized software companies,
   • match-making sessions with participation of big, middle size and small innovative Russian software companies with potential investors.

Everybody who wishes to come to SDS 2008 to find partnerships will meet full support from the organizers. The Program will include numerous networking, cultural and match-making opportunities, to which we could add specified services from the web-site in order to arrange pre-agreed meetings with anticipated participants of the Summit.

On behalf of the Organizing Committee let me express my personal desire to see you at SDS 2008 in St Petersburg during the best season of the Year – The “White Nights”!

President of RUSSOFT Association
Chairman of the Program Committee of SDS 2008

Valentin Makarov