The Aeroflot Group, which, in addition to the airline of the same name, includes Rossiya and Pobeda, by the end of March 2023, will install domestic software (software) Myoffice instead of Microsoft products on stationary computers of a number of structural divisions. This is stated in a letter sent on February 20, 2023 to the heads of these departments (Vedomosti has it).
The total volume of domestic software licenses for Aeroflot is 2,000 units, the letter specifies. It will be installed on the computers of the IT unit, the medical center and other departments as part of a text editor, spreadsheets and a presentation editor. As follows from the document, the transition to Russian software is carried out “in pursuance of the digital transformation strategy” in the Aeroflot group.
A representative of the Aeroflot group told Vedomosti that, based on the solutions available on the market, included in the Unified Register of Software Software (ERPO), testing was carried out and made in favor of Myoffice last year, since it “most fully meets the requirements” companies. According to him, Microsoft stopped supporting the office suite, so updates and new installations of the company’s products are not available.
Aeroflot plans to install Myoffice by the end of March for 50% of employees, by the end of the year – for 100% of jobs. The company is also actively working on the transition to a domestic client operating system (OS), for which the subsidiary AFLT-Systems received the partner status of “one of the Russian OS developers,” the representative of Aeroflot added, without specifying the name of the developer. The OS will be implemented in 2023-2024.
At the end of January, Aeroflot presented an updated development strategy for the group, which announced a complete transition of the national carrier to the use of only domestic software until 2030. Moyoffice confirmed the purchase.
This is not the first step in import substitution of information technology from domestic carriers. All Russian airlines have already completely switched to domestic automated air transportation processing systems, Vedomosti wrote on November 1, 2022.
Moyoffice is one of the most famous developers of domestic office software. The company is mainly engaged in the creation of solutions – analogues of the American software Microsoft Office, which allows you to work with text files, spreadsheets and presentations, mail and cloud data storage. According to SPARK-Interfax, 61% in the company belongs to the Russian developer of anti-virus software Kaspersky Lab, the remaining shares are distributed among the founders and top managers of the company.
In June 2022, VTB announced the purchase of about 100,000 licenses from Moiofis. The cost of the contract was estimated at 1.2 billion rubles. Also, the developer’s software was purchased by other state-owned companies and government agencies: Russian Railways, the Russian Guard, and the manager of the President of the Russian Federation.
In March 2022, the American corporation Microsoft announced a halt in sales of all products on the Russian market, including office suites. At the same time, the corporation promised to fulfill old contractual obligations and, among other things, not to leave socially significant Russian institutions – schools and hospitals – without updates.
According to Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of Infoline Analytics, Aeroflot could pay from 25 million rubles. for 2000 licenses “depending on their configuration”. “The transition to domestic software is an inevitable decision,” Burmistrov believes. For a number of Microsoft products, according to the expert, it is no longer possible to renew the license. Therefore, the expert continues, Aeroflot could have made the transition to Russian software faster. According to Burmistrov, given the increased sanctions pressure, other airlines will also have to use domestic software.
Alexandra Zalmanova, Head of the Domestic IT Products Development Department at Softline, noted that the cost of a license varies depending on the content of the package. “If we talk about the acquisition of a perpetual license with the right to receive updates for three years, we can estimate the range of the purchase amount for 2,000 licenses of Myoffice Standard 2 at 20–30 million rubles,” she said. Zalmanova estimated the cost of one such license at 16,000 rubles. According to her, the price for the acquisition of “Myoffice Professional 2” will be higher and will cost about 24,000 rubles. for one license, while the total amount of the purchase of 2000 units of such a license will increase to 40-50 million rubles. respectively.
Ekaterina Kinyakina took part in the preparation of the article