After hearing me go on for 45 minutes about the state of MCAD in general and in Russia, the floor was opened for two hours of discussion.
It began badly, when the first questioner demanded of me the marketshare numbers for each CAD company in Russia. Errm... Moderator Vladimir Malukh quickly pointed out that I am a CAD journalist, not a market researcher, and that my 45-minute monologue has been my opinions on the marketplace.
After a brief coffee break, the discussion became more regulated, as Mr Malukh asked directed questions, and elicited responses. One of the outcomes was a proposal that Russian CAD firms form an association to fight for common concerns, such as how engineering is taught in universities.
Afterwards, Autodesk CIS (Russia) took me out for dinner. To give me a taste of real Russian life, we flagged down an illegal taxi, negotiated the price, and we got a ride in an old Lada. Dinner was at the top of the Hyatt hotel, on an outdoor patio, with a view of Red Square and the Bolshoi opera house.
After dinner, we tried to see Red Square at night, but found it was blocked off for a concert of military music. For the trip back, we rode in a Mercedes with blackout windows.
It's now 11pm here and I am back in the hotel. For the first time, I saw my Russian hosts showed concern for my safety -- now that is it nighttime. Dmitry Slutsky of isicad (trip organizer) gave me a cell phone, and then told me to call him when I return to the hotel following my evening out with Autodesk CIS.
Returning to the hotel, the traffic was so heavy that it was decided I would get out across the street from the hotel. One of the Autodesk staffers came along to escort me to the hotel.
(How long does it take to get there? "About 15 minutes... Unless there is a traffic jam." -- standard statement by Moscow drivers.)
CAD in Russia
I am beginning to get an appreciation for the state of CAD in Russia, which may well have the most unique problems in the world.
One person told me that communism ended at the wrong time. 1989 was just when CAD was getting underway, and the turmoil following the unleashing of democracy stunted CAD's growth.
Growth was hindered twice more by (1) the conversion of state-owned industries to private hands, which greatly reduced workforces (or simply plundered the businesses), and (2) the huge rate of piracy.
Autodesk has found that businesses that switch from pirated software to legal sw also fix the rest of their business: they no longer avoid taxes and underpay staff. They are called "white businesses." The government is cracking down, too, because of new legislation and because of the additional taxes they can collect.
(Why is Windows popular here? Because in Russia it used to cost the same as Linux.)
Russia has its own standards, which differ from DIN and ISO. It has the 33-letter Cyrillic alphabet. It has a strong set of home-grown CAD vendors eager to expand to the rest of the world facing CAD vendors from The West.
Russian CAD vendors complain to me that the foreigners (Autodesk, Dassault, et al) are funded by the deep pockets of their Western head offices, and the Russians simply haven't the same level of funds.
But at least CAD software is a clean industry; very few have been shot. As for businessmen arrested for criminal activity and then losing their businesses -- well, Russians tell me, they just don't know: the government's story could be right, or the businessman could be innocent. They just don't know.
The problems are fascinating; it will be even more fascinating to watch them being solved.
(Extensive coverage of today's round table will appear in a future issue of upFront.eZine.)
About the Photo
After dinner, we tried to see Red Square at night, but it was blocked off for a concert of military music. We could only peer in from the edge of the security fence. In the photo above, a Red Square museum is framed by the entrance to GUM, the state-owned department store.
(Click thumbnail for larger image.)
You might have noticed, for example, that SoftDev's offices are very nice on the inside, but quite shabby on the outside. And you might have noticed that no one was driving you around in a late model luxury automobile.
There's a reason for this. If it looked like they had any money, they'd soon find the Russian mob (or Russian police) knocking on their doors, demanding payoffs.
Corruption seems to be, for now, an inherent part of Russian life. Better to not look like a good target.
Posted by: Evan Yares | Sep 08, 2009 at 11:10 PM