Business Online, June 9
Mintimer Shaimiev: “I kind of banked on him!”
A document signed by the President of the RT 18 years ago took shape in a thousand of workplaces and hundreds of IT projects implemented.
Examining the state-of-the-art technologies in the course of the visit to ICL-KME CS, Tatarstan’s largest IT company, Mintimer Shaimiev, the President of the Republic of Tatarstan, was thinking aloud about the phenomenon of time and about education problems. He also said that a person is the beginning of all things.
A Mobile Classroom is a Real Catch for the Countryside!
Today the President of the RT came to ICL-KME CS in order to hold a meeting on training of personnel for IT industry of the Republic. The visit began with a tour around the company. Evgeny Grishin, the President’s State Advisor, Ilsur Metshin, the Mayor of Kazan, Albert Gilmutdinov, the RT Minister of Education and Science, Farid Tuktarov, the RT Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Nikolay Nikiforov, Director of the RT Information Technologies Centre, Yuri Gortyshov, the Rector of Tupolev Kazan State Technical University, German Dyakonov, the Rector of Kazan State Technological University, Danis Nurgaliev, the Vice-Rector of Kazan State University, and others also took part in the tour.
First of all, the President visited the Museum of Kazan Computer Factory, the predecessor of ICL-KME CS, where got acquainted with the history of the enterprise that had once been the manufacturer of 40% of all the computer equipment in the Soviet Union. Margarita Batrutdinova, Director of the Museum, told the guests that computer systems developed in Kazan Computer Factory had been among the first ones in the country. And the first computer shipped from Kazan Computer Factory had been М-20 — the one that had computed the orbit launching of Yuri Gagarin’s spaceship. ЕС-1033, an other proprietary development of the Design Bureau of the enterprise, had been for many years the mainstream computer in the countries of CMEA.
18 years ago — and now this date also belongs to history! — a joint venture with ICL, a well-known British company, was founded on the basis of Kazan Computer Factory (later Kazan Manufacturing Enterprise of Computer Systems (KME CS)). Later on ICL became part of Fujitsu Group, a world leader in information technologies. And today the Global Delivery Centre (GDC), ICL-KME CS, delivers services to Fujitsu’s European customers. The President paid a visit to GDC.
“Today our specialists deliver services to more than 40 customers in 26 countries,” said Ruslan Vagizov, Executive Director, GDC. “They work in two areas: software development and remote infrastructure management. Now we are in the Customer IT Infrastructure Monitoring Centre. From here our specialists support about 1200 server farms and more than 2 thousand network equipment units of European customers on a real-time basis, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. At present we strive for orders from German Railways and Volvo.”
“And who evaluates the quality?” asked Mintimer Shaimiev.
“Our colleagues from Fujitsu and, of course, the customers. First we had a hard time because customers were not sure if they could rely on us. But now they highly appreciate us,” answered Vagizov.
“There are not so many specialists like you in the Republic. I wish you every success!” said Mintimer Shaimiev at the end of the meeting and went to the assembling workshop where PCs, laptops and servers are assembled.
A recent development of ICL-KME CS, a mobile computer classroom ICLab, drew the President’s attention. ICLab is equipped with ICL-KME CS’ laptops and looks like a mobile drawer unit, with a wireless access point to the local network and an uninterrupted power supply. One just has to take out the laptops, put them on the tables in any classroom — and the computer classroom, comprising 11 laptops connected into a network by Wi-Fi, is ready. And the drawer unit itself turns into the teacher’s desk.
The President gripped its handle and drew the mobile drawer unit after him.
“One can take knowledge with him, that’s very convenient! A real catch for the countryside!” said Shaimiev and assigned the RT Minister of Education and Science to consider the possibility of equipping the schools of the republic with similar mobile classrooms on the next stage of schools computer upgrade. The Minister informed him that at this moment these handy systems already work in 40 secondary educational institutions.
In the assembling workshop Shaimiev was presented with a modern laptop assembled in ICL-KME CS. He promised to give it to a girl, having cerebral palsy, as a gift.
Presentation about Time Spent Profitably
After the tour Victor Diachkov, General Director, ICL-KME CS mentioned a few figures concerning the current situation in the Company: number of employees is 1036 people, the average salary is 31,373 roubles, the volume of sales is 1,798.2 million roubles.
“That means, output per man amounts to one million eight hundred thousand a year!” The President calculated it immediately and nodded in approval.
“And do you remember how it all began? Eighteen years ago, in 1991, you signed an agreement with ICL, a British IT company, about technology transfer. That agreement is still valid. ICL has never refused to provide us with any technologies. We have added our experience, knowledge and skills to the technologies received and have created new jobs for more than one thousand people,” said Diachkov.
“And really good jobs!” noted the President.
The presentation slides visualized the Company’s growth during the last years: it was 35 to 40% per year.
“Obviously, this year the growth will slow down: we will either remain at last year’s level or the growth will amount to approximately 5 to 10%. By the way, diversification is one of the ways to stability under the conditions of crisis. 20% of the Company’s products and services are sold in Tatarstan and the rest — outside the republic. For example, 22% of sales in 2008 were made to federal state unitary enterprises and RF Ministries, including Ministry of Defense, and 16% — to Gazprom and its subsidiaries,” said the General Director.
Shaimiev was nearly interested in the fact.
“And what do you do for the Ministry of Defense?” he asked.
But Diachkov gave no direct answer and didn’t disclose the military secret! He only said: “As many as 150 programmers are engaged in these projects. And in general, I think that today we have projects, developed and successfully implemented, in each life support industry. We used to flag each project on this map but when you implement 500 projects a year, no map will be big enough for you.”
“Of course, there are many aspects in your work that I don’t understand but I have always supported you and keep supporting now,” said Shaimiev to Diachkov and explained to everyone present: “In fact, I have banked on this man. And I am happy that he sets higher targets and does everything to achieve them. We live in the age of information. If we don’t master information technologies, we will fall behind in any field. And lose of time means lose of competitiveness. That is why lose of time is inadmissible now. Eventually the one who develops informational technologies, or at least has them, will win.”
He Came from the Forest and Beat Everyone to the Punch!
Usually companies use the visit of the First Person of the Republic to solve their acute problems but in ICL-KME CS nobody either spoke about their problems or lobbied anything for themselves. Yet Diachkov had a request but not for the benefit of ICL-KME CS: “It would be great if we could invite professors from American universities to Kazan State University, Tupolev Kazan State Technical University and Kazan State Technological University — educational institutions we work closely with. At present American professors are the best methodologists in IT disciplines. It would be also very useful to send our professors to the USA for retraining. If we do it systematically, in two years Kazan will become the retraining centre for professors of all the universities of the Volga region. It will dramatically increase the level of students training and will give a new impetus to the development of relevant chairs in the universities.”
Shaimiev endorsed the idea and instructed ICL-KME CS to work out various options: “Let us set the goal. Draft proposals, and we will make use of them.”
In general there was an impression that the way youth is treated in ICL-KME CS and the fact that there are a lot of yesterday’s students appealed to the President. Though he spent little time at the enterprise, he managed to talk to many young people about their studies, about customers and about the salary: he wanted to know if it was paid on a timely basis. He even offered to give the status of the President’s tournament to the traditional programming tournament for university and high school students having been held by the Company for 9 years. At the end of the visit Mintimer Shaimiev asked Vagizov where he came from. He answered that he was from Kirov region.
“He came from the forest and beat everyone to the punch!” joked the President. He suggested that the Company itself should participate in training of future personnel. And got the answer: “We do that already!”
Shaimiev again spoke about the major resource: “If we don’t involve the young in the most important activities, we will lose time. A person is the beginning of all things!”
This thought, though very simple, sounded quite topical at the enterprise engaged in creation of state-of-the-art technologies and automated systems.
And in two hours after the President’s visit in ICL-KME CS a shareholders meeting was held.
