Michael Mainville

With Russia facing stiff competition from other emerging economies for a piece of the global high tech market - especially offshore outsourcing contracts -corporate leaders in Moscow are complaining that the Russian government is not doing enough to support the industry.

Russia's reputation as a haven for software pirates is being reinforced by allegations that a code thief has been illegally distributing a program called RaceCAD that is actually a product of Texas-based software company Alibre Inc.

With Russia facing stiff competition from other emerging economies for a piece of the global high-tech market -- especially offshore outsourcing contracts --corporate leaders in Moscow are complaining that the Russian government is not doing enough to support the industry.

With Russia facing stiff competition from other emerging economies for a piece of the global high-tech market -- especially offshore outsourcing contracts --corporate leaders in Moscow are complaining that the Russian government is not doing enough to support the industry.

The number of cellular phone users in Russia broke the 30 million barrier in September, but despite significant growth, digital data services have yet to catch on with Russian users.

Faced with an increasingly competitive Moscow labour market, Russia's leading offshore outsourcing firm is drawing talent from outlying cities and even former Soviet republics in a bid to keep costs down and fight staff attrition.

After a decade of working abroad in a variety of IT jobs, Michael Mogilevsky has come home to Russia.

Oracle Corp. is supplying its E-Business Suite to Russia's giant telecommunications holding Svyazinvest in a contract that some here are touting as the largest information technology deal in Russian history.