Newsletter 1
The Second Baltic IT Cruise
Helsinki – Stockholm - Helsinki, Silja Line Ferry

26 February – 1 March 2006

The First Baltic IT Cruise passed with great success on board of «Viking Line» ferry on November 21-23, 2004. It was dedicated to enhancing cooperation in the IT outsourcing, software development and sales in the Baltic Sea Region. The Cruise was organized by RUSSOFT Association and Fort-Ross Ltd., which has always been the main organizer of business tours and road-shows all across Scandinavia in the previous years.

The use of IT resources, located on the other side of the Baltic Sea, becomes very relevant for Scandinavian and Finish companies. They find more and more competitive advantages by using such resources. During several last years the companies from both sides have gained significant experience of such cooperation, considerable number of success stories have appeared. Many of these facts have been discussed and studied during the Cruise program. On the other hand - the Russian IT market has greatly changed and practically doubled during the last years; new serious consumers of the latest present-day technologies appeared and therefore it became more attractive for international IT business of the Baltic Sea Region.

Over 60 companies from 10 countries took part in this conference. It is important to highlight the level of the speakers, namely:

Nils Molin, Senior Research Analyst of IDC (Scandinavia), World’s one of the best analytic agencies;

Ulf Baggstrom, Managing Director of CSC Sweden, Scandinavian branch of the World’s second largest consulting IT-company;

Jaakko Parkkinen, Vice President of TietoEnator, leading IT-company of Scandinavia.

David Axmark, founder of MySQL company and Open Source Data-base technology founder;

Per-Ake Andersson, IT director of VINNOVA, The Swedish Agency for Innovations;

Hakan Amnas, Managing Director of Syncron, one of the largest Scandinavian IT companies,

and many others.

The leading Russian speaking software developing companies who have a wide working experience with Scandinavia, took part in this cruise (Reksoft, IBA, Lanit-Tercom, DATI, Exigen, Arcadia). A significant part of the discussion was devoted to the issues of the governmental support for IT development in the region, namely, governmental support programs for IT industry and IT parks creation. On the behalf of the St Petersburg City Administration Mr. Sergey Zhdanov, Chairman of IT Committee, took part in this cruise.

The large part of the program was dedicated to the business meetings between  companies, where participants were able to find new clients and partners. On one had, Scandinavian and Finish companies got able to represent their requirements for the software development and outsourcing and on the other hand, their counterparts from Russia and Baltic States could show up their existing technologies and experiences.

Here are the opinions of participants about this cruise:

Svetlana Antonyuk, Head of Marketing Communications, Reksoft:

“Since Nordic countries are a key area for Reksoft and we have had operations there since 2000, we could not miss the opportunity to present the successful cases of cooperation with our Northern neighbors in public. Although offshore outsourcing is still getting recognition relatively slow in Scandinavia and Finland, we see it as dormant yet promising market that could at once bring immense  benefits for those who have started working early in it.

The conference gave us the opportunity to meet with a number of prospective customers as well as get a some new insights into the Nordic IT market provided by analysts and experts.”

Ulf Baggstrom, director,  CSC, Sweden:

“Thanks for inviting me to the conference. On the whole I enjoyed it very much and it certainly gave me a better insight into Eastern Europes offshore capabilities. I was impressed with the skill sets that the participating organizations demonstrated.”

Alexander Kirilkin, Corporate Business Development Director, Kvazar-Micro:

“We are very glad to had a participation in IT Baltic cruise. We have got lots of new contacts and business information about the “offshoring” in Baltic region. I am sure we will participate and see the Viking line again!”

Harry Piela, General director, Sybase Baltic:

«Congratulations, Cruise was indeed organized excellent way and it was very useful !
Thank you and your staff, great work !»

Valentin Makarov, President, Association RUSSOFT:

“It looks like it was the most successful Scandinavian event for the whole 5 years of our activity. The idea of outsourcing to Russia and to Baltic countries becomes more and more popular because it’s the most effective way of keeping leadership of Scandinavia and Finland in the World’s IT market. The Cruise showed that we are not any more the risky service providers with indefinite quality level, but competent, reliable partners within the IT community of the Baltic Sea region”