ContekSoft became a resident of the Special Economic Zone established in Tomsk. Vladimir Sosnin, Director of Conteksoft took part in a meeting held in Moscow and signed an appropriate Agreement.
Special Economic Zones will have a free customs regime and special conditions of land use. It is expected 15 billion rubles (ˆ410 mln) investments by 2010 in the development of the infrastructure of the Tomsk special economic zone.
The special economic zone in Tomsk will include two sites: Southern and Northern. The first building at the Southern site will be finished by October 2008.
According to the latest investment appeal rating published by Expert agency, Tomsk Region is one of the best Siberian Federal District.

Recently Conteksoft was authorised as a Microsoft AER. This will allow us to sell Microsoft products at academic prices to qualified educational users. It is especially important because Tomsk where Conteksoft is based is the largest educational center of Siberia with its 11 Universities, 20 Colleges and more than 30 Institutes. Conteksoft is now searchable in AER database which have Russian interface as well.

Some time ago Conteksoft registered as an Affiliate at oDesk.com, the only online marketplace for verified remote work. Recently the company gained the 1st assignments -- development of Browser Helper Object and design of a Joomla-based web site. Profile of the Affiliate Manager Sergey Komkov is available here.
It was a long term client of Conteksoft who pointed at this promising opportunity.

Recently our company has received hard copies of official ISO certificates. It is a long-awaited outcome of the process which has lasted for 2 years and has taken considerable efforts, much time and communication. The challenge was in company structure consisting of separate teams working at different projects. It was necessary to unify the quality management processes of all teams.
The certification was carried out by experts of the "Russian Register" Association which is a partner of IQnet Association based in Bern, Switzerland.
The next step in this direction is CMMI certification. Besides, we examine the possibility of implementing the system of Balanced Score Cards.

A manager from ContekSoft responsible for Microsoft Certified Partner Program participated at Windows Vista/Office 2007 Roadshow. The show was held in Novosibirsk on the 8th of February. Microsoft presented brand new versions of Windows and Office and answered multiple questions. The audience exceeded 160 people – a record number for similar events in Russia. The event was attended primarily OEM resellers and system builders. The roadshow was especially useful for us in view of growing interest in the licensing of Microsoft software among local schools and Universities.

ContekSoft pays much attention to the quality of its management processes. We have been polishing these processes for ISO 9000:2000 certification since the middle of 2006. Finally, at the end of 2006 our premises were visited by a team of auditors. The company’s staff demonstrated to them company management and production processes. As a whole, the auditors were satisfied with how we manage our processes and gave only a few recommendations to be implemented. We expect to obtain the ISO certificates in February 2007.

ContekSoft has recently made a presentation of the alpha version of Tax Accounting system to the customer – a large oil production company located in the Tomsk region. The client was fully satisfied with the system and approved the budget of the final phase of the project which involves over 10 ContekSoft employees.

ContekSoft took part in the 16th International Technological Congress CITOGIC-2006. The Congress was attended by top managers of GazProm, E.ON Ruhrgas AG, Siemens and Gaz de France. Like other local participants, ContekSoft presented its innovative products for oil and gas companies. Tomsk Governor Victor Kress said at the Congress that a large oilfield was explored recently at the left bank of the river Ob.
Through efforts of our designers, ContekSoft booth was one of the most original at CITOGIC.

Today our company has officially acquired the Microsoft Certified Partner status. We are currently in the process of updating our web sites layout with the partnership logo. It will appear on the site by the middle of next week. It is planned that the first project of ContekSoft as Microsoft Certified Partner will be related to deployment of Microsoft® Dynamics AX (Axapta Navision) at one of local enterprises. The partnership status is the recognition of company efforts in the integration of its products with Microsoft solutions and extensive usage of Microsoft development tools.

ContekSoft is about to obtain the status of a Microsoft Certified Partner. One of our products, KT-Personnel, has been tested for Windows Client and SQL Server components and we obtained 3 customer's references. As a result we have earned ISV/Software Solutions competency and obtained necessary partner points. It is expected that membership activation will be finished next week. ContekSoft is the 2nd IT company in Tomsk and the 3rd in Siberia which has earned ISV/Software Solutions competency.

Regional IT  Associations gathered in Tomsk to establish a non-commercial association. The agenda included the discussion of Congress basic principles and the Charter. The aim of Congress was to struggle against expansion of Moscow and St.-Petersburg companies into regional markets. Representatives of IT Associations from Perm, Samara, Ekaterinburg and Tomsk and directors of the largest ICT companies of Tomsk took part in the meeting. The number of companies embraced by the future Congress will be around 80, and the number of its employees is about 7,000 people.
The next meeting is planned in the middle of September 2006 in Ekaterinburg. See more details at TomKIT (Association of Tomsk IT Companies) web-site (http://tomkit.ru – currently available in Russian only).

Representatives of GPSG Solutions, IBM East Europe/Asia visited ContekSoft yesterday. ContekSoft managers made a presentation on the company history, structure, business processes, projects, etc.
The aim of their visit was to identify and select IT companies located behind the Urals which can become future IBM suppliers. The guests also examined HR potential of IT-related departments of Tomsk Universities.
The visitors were satisfied with the presentation of ContekSoft and impressed by the new company's office. As a next step IBM will analyze the visit and make final selection/approval of suppliers.

Tomsk, the home city of ContekSoft, is hosting Russian-German Summit. Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel accompanied by members of both Governments will carry on negotiations in Tomsk during the 26-27th of April. The heads of technology and power companies (such as Siemens AG, Gazprom) will discuss the future of Russian-German cooperation and visit local hi-tech/IT companies and Universities. Over 200 journalists from the leading media agencies will attend the event. To meet the requirements of customs the national border will be marked during these days at the airport of Bogashovo. Vladimir Putin visits Tomsk as the President of Russia for the 3rd time.

ContekSoft in cooperation with TomskNeft (YUKOS subsidiary) has launched a project which is estimated by experts as one of the four largest Siberian IT-projects planned for 2006. The project covers the development of accounting and analytical systems used by TomskNeft since 2000. In addition to software development, ContekSoft provides methodological support for finance and accounting departments of TomskNeft.

In the annual contest organized by the Tomsk Regional Administration ContekSoft was nominated "The Best Small Innovative Enterprise". The official ceremony of rewarding will take place in January 2006.

Tomsk (hometown of ContekSoft) is among the 6 Russian regions which won the competition to become special economic zones. Altogether it is planned to construct in Tomsk 3 engineering complexes - for informatics and communication, biotechnology, new materials and nanotechnologies (total area will be more than 143,000 square meters). The 1st complex for industrial electronics, informatics and telecommunications will be built by 2007.
Similar zones will be established in Moscow (Zelenograd), Moscow region (Dubna) and St. Petersburg.
These special economic zones (which will be established for 20 years) will have free customs regime and special conditions of land use. It is planned to invest 8 billion rubles (ˆ235 mln) from the federal budget during 2006 in the development of infrastructure of these special economic zones.

ContekSoft took part in the 15th Moscow International
Advertising Festival (MIAF). Below are some impressions on the event from our Art Director.
"It is when the city you last visited in 1992 meets you with a 3õ6 banner ‘Wish You Successful Leasing in the New Year’, when MIAF seems to be overloaded with advertising Newtons, when you are gulping every second hoping to digest everything you see, hear and feel into priceless experience, when you understand that there’s too little of you but you are glad because there could be even less, that’s when you realize that you shouldn’t be in a hurry and shouldn’t think that you can change the world, but that you just need to be more responsible for what you do and understand whom you do it for and for what purpose...
P.S. Komolov is the best advertiser, Front-design are Living People, Piotr Slepkov keeps on bringing first prizes to Tomsk…"

Recently the leaders of ContekSoft have conducted negotiations with the Russian Golf Association regarding software development. ContekSoft is supposed to design and develop a system which will collect data related to tournaments, handicap calculations, players and referees from golf clubs. At present the parties discuss technical details as well as terms and conditions of the future project. At the moment Albatros golf management system (enhanced and localized by ContekSoft) is used in Le Meridien Moscow Country Club and Moscow City Club. Our specialists provide support for both clubs.

ContekSoft has launched the Russian version of its web-site.
The site is dedicated to the company activities in Russia and Siberia in particular. Here one can find information concerning the company’s profile, offered services, systems, products and ready solutions. Besides, the site has a client support area. The resource gradually becomes more and more visible in the Russian search engines.

A research-and-development center was established by Panasonic in Tomsk. The center will be engaged in developing new software products to be used in communications, particularly, in mobile communication systems produced under Panasonic trademark. The company intends to actively collaborate with the universities and IT companies, recruit local software developers.

ContekSoft together with Albatros Datenservice GmbH participated at Golf Expo 2005 - the second annual golf show in Moscow. The exhibition took place at the Radisson SAS Slavyanskaya Hotel Moscow on May 18-19 2005. ContekSoft presented Albatros golf course management software at the show. Albatros has been serving the golf industry for 15 years and is celebrating unprecedented success across Europe. Approximately 400 courses benefit from the power of Albatros. From Tee-Times to Point-of-Sale; from F&B to Accounting; from Handicapping to Tournaments, Albatros puts it all under one roof.

According to the last issue of US-based BISNIS program there are plans by Total, Chevron Texaco, and BP to invest in oil and gas projects in Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Irkutsk regions. It is reported also F5 Networks recently established a branch in Tomsk.

Beta version of ContekSoft design studio launched. The site will be updated to final version in 2 phases. Each visitor may influence on the final version. Send us what you like or dislike using email. We guarantee we will read your message carefully and discuss your offer. Currently only Russian version of the web-site is available.

ContekSoft, joined by Albatros Datenservice GmbH, has begun the installation of Albatros golf management system in Le Meridien Moscow Country Club. This golf course will be the second user of Albatros in Russia, preceded by Moscow City Golf Club where the system was installed last summer. As a reminder, ContekSoft is the official distributor of Albatros golf course management software in Russia and NIS. Besides installation and training, ContekSoft provides ongoing support of the system to the Russian customers.

Mikhail Gorbachev was the keynote speaker at the Mass Software Council's annual spring meeting. His visit is a sign of quickly growing partnerships between Russia- and New England-based software companies. Acting on behalf of RUSSOFT, Alexis Sukharev, president of Auriga company, convinced Gorbachev to visit Boston. RUSSOFT then asked the Mass Software Council to be host. RUSSOFT - a Russian software industry group that signed an agreement with the Mass Software Council in 2003. More details.

ContekSoft took part in 3rd annual Siberian IT Industry forum held in Novosibirsk. The main topic of the Forum became establishment of IT park in Novosibirsk approved by President Putin during his visit to Novosibirsk in January 2005. The main sponsors of the Forum were Intel which opened its representation in Novosibirsk the last year and Hewlett Packard.

Web site of Tom football team is finished. This year Tom (from Tomsk) play in Premier League of Russian Football Championship the first time. Unfortunately only Russian version of the web-site is available currently.

Conteksoft Design Studio finished the new version of the corporate web site. It will present the most up-to-date information on the company's activities, advanced features and improved form for getting a free quote. We plan to launch the new web site during this weekend.

On April 12-14 ContekSoft together with Albatros Datenservice GmbH will make their first installation of golf software in Moscow. The Moscow City Golf Club automated with Albatros software will open its doors on April 15.

We give much attention to the promotion of our corporate web site. The feedback is top positions in leading search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Just try entering "outsourcing software", "offshore programming", or "software development" in Yahoo and you will see the result.

During March 18-24 our company took part in the world's largest high-tech exhibition in Hannover. We had a lot of interesting meetings and made many valuable contacts. Several promising negotiations arising from CeBIT are now in progress.

ContekSoft will participate in the Russian Software Pavilion (Hall 5) at the world-known ICT event in Germany. Our Marketing Manager Maria Dubyagina will be happy to meet you there. She will also make a presentation about one of our projects at the German-Russian ICT Forum (Convention Center, Halls 13/14, Monday, 22 March, from 1.30 p.m.). Feel free to contact us if you would like to appoint a meeting at the exhibition.

Our company has become the exclusive distributor of Albatros Golf Management System in Russia and NIS. The owner of the software is Albatros Datenservice GmbH - our long-term outsourcing partner. In March ContekSoft is signing a contract with Moscow City Golf Club for supply and maintenance of Albatros software.

In spite of applied by Google a few days ago, ContekSoft retained its top listing in search results for the most relevant keywords. Just enter "software development company" in Google search field to see it yourself.

Our company affiliated with TOMITA-SOFTWARE company - an alliance of Tomsk-based software companies and US-based IT-consultants. Our united resources and capabilities along with onsite presence will allow us to handle large-sized and complicated ICT projects. Web site of TOMITA-SOFTWARE is http://www.tomita-software.com.

Fresh research from Foote Partners LLC shows that the offshore outsourcing trend has finally started to eat into the value of IT certifications. The overall bonus premium pay that comes with some IT certifications fell nearly 6% over the past 12 months.

ContekSoft completed the development of subsystems for Yukos corporate 'Decision-making System'. These subsystems include a corporate data warehouse, reference data management system and the system for managing registers of primary documents. The function of these subsystems is to collect and analyze financial and accounting information from Yukos subdivisions. The deployment of these subsystems in one of Yukos subdivisions - Tomskneft - is scheduled for autumn 2003.

ContekSoft will represent Tomsoft Association at the third Software Outsourcing Summit held in St. Petersburg from the 25th till the 28th of June 2003. The event will bring together over 500 IT outsourcing providers and buyers from Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Baltic States, Scandinavian countries, USA, Japan, Germany, etc. This year the summit concurs with the 300th Anniversary of the City of St Petersburg - the event which is expected to attract great audience from all over the world. This will be a unique background for building international cooperation and establishing productive business relations. See details at http://www.soft-outsourcing.com/index.asp?file=about_summit.

Western European businesses wasted around ?6bn on poorly structured outsourcing deals last year, despite outsourcing being the one bright spot in a struggling UK IT sector. While the European industry as a whole contracted, outsourcing was the only sector to experience growth, expanding by 6.3 per cent. But too many deals were signed to save money in the short term, rather than considering the longer-term business requirements of the company, warned Gartner. See full article at http://www.vnunet.com/News/1140537.

On Tuesday, two Russian oil companies - Yukos and Sibneft - announced in Moscow their decision to merge into one unit named YukosSibneft. The new company will become the leader of the Russian oil industry and the fourth privately owned oil company in the world by its production volume. The total value of YukosSibneft is estimated at approximately $36 billion. Yukos is a strategic partner of ContekSoft.

Today the president of RUSSOFT Association Valentin Makarov has held a meeting with the speaker of the Upper Chamber Sergey Mironov. V.Makarov has presented to S.Mironov the project for the set-up of IT-incubators network in Russian cities (Moscow, St.Petersburg, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg). The project was signed by authorities of regional IT Associations including TomSoft whose establishment was actively supported by ContekSoft. The meeting resulted in the agreement to hold one more session within a month to discuss the steps of program implementation. One of the expected effects of the meeting is that passing of obviously unfavourable for IT industry laws will now be controlled through the Upper chamber.

The 2nd US-Russia ICT Roundtable in February 2003 estimated that the Russian IT market grew 20%+ during 2001-2002 years while global IT spending was down. It is anticipated that by 2005 the market value will reach almost $20 bln. As to Russian software market, it gave a yearly rise of 80% for the last two years. See details at http://conteksoft.com/Russian_ITmarket.pdf

Conteksoft has finished the formation of its representatives network. Now you can contact directly our agents in the following countries: the USA, the UK, and Germany. See Contact Us section.

...were identified at the recent U.S.-Russia Technology Roundtable in San Jose, California: 1. More and more IT projects will be outsourced offshore in the coming years; 2. More US corporate giants open dedicated software development centers in places like Russia and India. For example, Dell just established one in Moscow managed by Russian company; 3. The gradual acceptance of Western intellectual property standards including IP-related legislation by Eastern Europeans; 4. Offshore sourcing moves up the value chain turning more and more towards high-end and complex algorithm-intensive IT projects; 5. Stratification of offshore countries based on cost and skill sets with Russia and China stepping forward.

Standard & Poor`s entitled YUKOS oil company - our principal customer - with the highest credit rating among Russian companies. Considerable volumes of oil exports provide YUKOS with a stable source of revenue in foreigh currency (in 2001 YUKOS exports amounted to 48% for oil and 35% for petroleum products). As predicted by Standard & Poor`s, the high current level of YUKOS liquidity will ensure sound safety rate for future investments and enhance company's tolerance to risks entailed by oil prices instability.

Our web-site promotion program yields fruit. ContekSoft is among Top 10 at Google search of offshore software development companies! Check it yourself to witness our success: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=software+development+company;

Contek Director Vladimir Sosnin participated in a business workshop with CIO of Siberian Chemical Plant (SCP). The plant is the largest enterprise in the region specializing in nuclear fuel processing. An initial cooperation agreement between Conteksoft and SCP was signed.

We participated in 1st German-Russian ICT Symposium in Moscow. The company Presentation have been included in Virtual Forum of the 1st German-Russian ICT Symposium. More than 50 German and 60 Russian ICT companies have participate. Symposium is organized by the Ministry of Communications and Informatization of Russian Federation and BITKOM, German Federal Association for Information Technologies, Telecommunications and New Media.

Financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers, J.P. Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, UBS and Deutsche Bank initiated the 1st meeting aimed at establishing Instant Messaging Standards Board (IMSB). Companies invited to the first meeting of the IMSB included IBM, Jabber, AOL, Communicator, FaceTime Communications, Microsoft, Reuters and MindAlign.

The company Presentation have been included in Virtual Forum of the 1st German-Russian ICT Symposium. The event will be held in Moscow on 22-23 October 2002. More than 50 German and 60 Russian ICT companies have been already registered as participants. Symposium is organized by the Ministry of Communications and Informatization of Russian Federation and BITKOM, German Federal Association for Information Technologies, Telecommunications and New Media.

New office is opened! Thus the total square of ContekSoft offices exceeds 400 sq.m. It means 8 sq.m. per capita.

Two ContekSoft project managers participated in a seminar organized by Yukos company in Samara, Russia. The seminar was dedicated to Yukos Corporate Standards of Fixed Assets and Capital Investments Accounting.

ContekSoft took part in 2nd Software Outsourcing Summit in St.Petersburg, Russia. See http://www.soft-outsourcing.com for details.

Two ContekSoft project managers participated in a seminar organized by Yukos company in Moscow. The seminar was dedicated to Automation of Tax Accounting.

The company participated at OutsourceWorld London 2002 Expo. Many useful contacts and appointments were made.

ContekSoft took part in 2nd Software Outsourcing Summit in St.Petersburg, Russia. See http://www.soft-outsourcing.com for details.

Two ContekSoft project managers participated in a seminar organized by Yukos company in Moscow. The seminar was dedicated to Automation of Tax Accounting.

The company participated at OutsourceWorld London 2002 Expo. Many useful contacts and appointments were made.