Not a corporate IT spirit

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Ilya Massukh, Director of the Competence Center for Import Substitution in the Sphere of Information and Communication Technologies (CICT), told RSpectr.

He recalled that discussions about entering such an investment distribution had been held with organizations since 2020. The recommendations have already been agreed upon with the departments supervising the activities of large state-owned companies and submitted to the Ministry of Digital Development, the author of the document said. The Ministry will send them for approval to the relevant government commission on digital development, he specified.

"I think it is right when in a dispute between two unequal competitors - state corporations and IT vendors - the state sets the maximum limit for the use of administrative leverage, equalizing the content writing service rights of different segments of the industry," Valentin Makarov, head of the RUSSOFT partnership, told RSpectr. He drew an analogy with the establishment of a minimum share of state contracts that were to be executed by SMEs.



The Ministry of Digital Development confirmed to RSpectr that the main provisions of the methodological recommendations have been agreed upon with the interested departments, and the indicators of IT budget expenditures for the services of independent developers have been established taking into account the current situation on the IT services market.

Press service, Ministry of Digital Development:

– This indicator is aimed primarily at supporting the Russian IT industry by stimulating demand from state-owned companies for market products and attracting external IT services.

The Ministry believes that this approach promotes the emergence of new, in-demand solutions on the market and the practice of replicating them, but notes that restrictions on internal IT spending only apply to state-owned companies and state corporations.

"The restrictions have been in place since last year. At the same time, we are based on the practice of implementing digital transformation strategies by state-owned companies. Statistics show that in those companies where the strategy is being implemented, this indicator has even been exceeded to date. The share of IT budget expenditures on external developments is on average 84%, and according to the plan for 2024 - 88%," the press service of the Ministry of Digital Development clarified.

The head of one of the major IT companies, in an informal conversation with RSpectr, expressed the opinion that the data on the share of costs of 84% may not be objective due to the fact that corporations sometimes give the order to their affiliated companies. Indirect confirmation of this can be found in the recommendations, where there is a condition - "not affiliated with the customer."