OREANDA-NEWS. March 30, 2009. In 2008 I.T. Co. turnover increased by over 20 % in comparison to 2007 results. Such success is achieved in spite of the difficult situation in the Russian IT market in the second half of last year caused by the global economic recession.

Achievement of stable growth became possible, first of all, due to an increase in the share of IT services in the structure of the Group of Companies income. Based on the results for 2008 calendar year* the total earnings of I.T. Group reached 5.17 billion rubles (excluding mutual settlements between companies within the Group).

Successful coherent development of I.T. Group in 2008 resulted from consistent realization of the strategy chosen several years ago. One of its elements - focusing of the Group's business on highly professional service-oriented segments of the IT market. Thanks to such approach the share of services increased in the overall business volume, and based on the results for the year IT services accounted for 59.9 % (56 % in 2007) of the total turnover. This indicator is composed of consulting services and audit (27.8 %), integration projects (15 %), education (8 %), and IT outsourcing (9.1 %). Another 22 % is composed on equipment used in the projects, and 18.1 % — software.

In 2008 I.T. Co. continued to actively expand its unique solutions and develop new ones. The existing solutions, such as I.T.-University (automation of all aspects of university administration in a single environment), I.T.-Oil (used for complex automation of filling station chains and oil depots management), BOSS-Referent: State management (designed for development of electronic documents management systems for government organizations), were supplemented with a specialized complex for achieving objectives related to IT development for the regional authorities. Many components of this solution are already implemented and used, in particular, by the Voronezh region Government.

Other components of the 2008 success are operations on the big industry markets, execution of federal-scale projects. The most significant ones became systematic projects involving complex IT development of federal and local authorities, including the Obligatory Medical Insurance Fund (OMIF), Federal Migration Agency (FMA), Federal Tax Agency (FTA), Rossvyaznadzor, Rosnedvizhimost, Moscow Government and others. One project that should be noted - the project executed for the Federal Securities Market Commission involving development of the core for the global IS for the Commission purposes.

There were a number of projects executed for implementation of complex solutions I.T.-University for various Russian universities (MGSU, Public Economy Academy of the Government of the Russian Federation, MIEE, Timiryazev Moscow Agriculture Academy, DVGTU, UGATU, MGPPU, Gertzen RGPU and many others). One of the biggest ones was the complex project executed at the Eurochem subsidiaries, where I.T. Co. was responsible for the IT infrastructure development. Also in 2008 I.T. Co. won the tender for research and development work on development of integrated IS for control of outside lighting in Moscow. This project needs to be completed by 2011, and the first stage of work is already completed.

Moreover, in the beginning of last year the company created own Free Software Competence Center and the I.T. Co. specialists already commenced execution of first projects using free software, including CIS development on the basis of JBoss platform.

Highly professional and competent work of I.T. Group in 2008 was noted by the world's leading IT companies. Thus, in additional to the top IBM, Oracle and Microsoft statuses that the company already possesses, it has met all the requirements allowing I.T. Co. gain three more gold partner statuses — from Cisco, Hewlett-Packard and Avaya.

The regional business development strategy of I.T. Group in the past year concentrated on qualitative, rather than quantitative development of geographically distributed structure. Today over a third of engineers, consultants, teachers, programmers and other employees of I.T. Group are working in the regions.

Important events of the I.T. regional development include commencement of establishment of a network of regional resource centers (the first one opened in Ufa at the beginning of spring 2008); creation of regional competence centers (currently regional branches have competence centers for design of data centers and infrastructure solutions for industrial centers); creation of regional implementation teams in the area of ERP and other business-applications; expansion of regional resource groups of IT outsourcing specialists.

Along with the system integrator other companies from I.T. Group have demonstrated positive results.

Main achievements of I.T. Academy in 2008 are: successful market penetration of a number of new technology areas, significant increase in the number of education courses, development of distance education solution based on Moodle free software. The Academy continued development of geographically distributed business service model and together with Red Hat unrolled ROSEP program (Russian Open Source Education Program), presuming opening of Linux education centers within Russian universities.

The most significant ones for Aplana Software in the past year are projects executed for IFD-Capital, IG Alros, Government of the Moscow region, MTS, Sberbank. Also there was several successful projects executed dealing with electronic sale of digital content for foreign customers. Other important for Alana events in 2008 include conclusion of a partnership agreement with Red Hat for JBoss product.

Company BOSS Kadroviye Systemi, being the developer of the leading Russian HR management system BOSS-Kadrovik, in parallel with development of new versions and updating of this software in 2008 continued to work on expanding the scope and achievement of new quality level in services in implementation of corporate systems and correspondent HR consulting for holding structures.

And, finally, results of company BOSS-Referent (was founded in May of last year) even for part of 2008 were also remarkable. As was planned, the company works along the classical vendor scheme, i.e. develops the software itself — BOSS-Referent electronic documents management system, and expands the partner network and provides marketing support for the brand. By the end of last year BOSS-Referent signed partnership agreements with 25 companies, geographic distribution of which allowed for execution of electronic documents management system BOSS-Referent implementation projects in the entire territory of Russia. Overall, in 2008 BOSS-Referent system implementation projects went in 67 companies and organizations.

I.T. Co. CIO Tagir Yapparov says: “Results for 2008, that was not the simplest year for the market in general and IT in particular, illustrates the correctness of the chosen I.T. Group development strategy. We are realists, and we understand that 2009 will be even harder for everyone. But at the same time the crisis opens many new opportunities, and we see it as suiting period to open and develop new practices. Therefore the Group's plans include expansion of its presence in promising market segments with complex solutions. Moreover, this year we plan to further develop our services segment, and the most relevant in the current situation services and solutions aimed to achievement of real efficiency and economy, among which we can single out audit, IT outsourcing, free software, SaaS and others. And the client-oriented business model chosen by I.T. Co. has already proven itself. Thanks to such approach we can easily fit the customer's needs and offer fulfillment of almost any objectives we face.”