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Interview with CEE-SECR Chairman Nick Puntikov

The Art of Russian Programming: Open System interviews Nick Puntikov

Interview by Natalia Dubova

Nick Puntikov, SECR chairman

Nick Puntikov: “The Russian software development industry has reached a certain level of maturity, and Russia has been able to occupy a meaningful position in the international division of labor”

Nick Puntikov is one of the veterans of the Russian software development industry. In 1991 he co-founded StarSoft, one of the first local companies to develop custom software and, in 2007, through a merger between StarSoft and Exigen Services, became President of Operations of the combined companies. Currently Puntikov is Group President at First Line Software, chairman of the SECR conference and Editor-in-chief for the Software Russia web portal.

We spoke with Mr. Puntikov on the Russian software industry’s achievements and prospects, the fate of local start-ups and the next future SECR conference.

You have been involved in the Russian software development industry for many years. How would you describe its current state?

The Russian software development industry has reached a certain level of maturity. One of the particularities of the software industry is that it is inherently global. Software development is one of the few areas in which Russia has been able to occupy a meaningful position in the international division of labor.

What is this position?

In some areas it is already difficult for us to compete – in the development of operating systems, for example. But there are a number of companies that manufacture products that have a great reputation on the global market. My only concern is that the number is growing very slowly. From year to year we are still proud of the same names – Kaspersky Lab, ABBYY, etc. These companies started about 20 years ago and have been successful since the 90’s. It is not that there are no new names, but I would like there to be more.

Another major segment of the software market is service. A dozen Russian companies are at the top of international rankings in this area. However, we must understand how “Russian” they really are. Luxoft has Russian roots but its development arm is located in the Ukraine and the sales offices in America, etc. EPAM Russia has located its main development center in Belarus, and is headquartered in America. And our company First Line Software is based in Russia, but is represented and sells services for the development of custom software in the United States, Sweden, Germany, and Singapore. It fully shows the global nature of the market.

The third segment comprises the research and development centers of multinational corporations. The fact that almost all the leading international companies develop software in Russia only proves the maturity and authority of the Russian software industry.

What is needed to bring about the emergence of new software companies? Does an ecosystem for innovative technological entrepreneurship exist in Russia?

It is wrong to try to apply the concept of an innovation ecosystem to one particular industry. Innovation can only arise in the economic system as a whole provided that a number of properties and characteristics are present in the legal, economic, political and social spheres. The Russian economy does not yet have such properties, unfortunately, and remains largely post-industrial and heavily dependent on natural resources and a controlling, corrupt bureaucracy. The question, then, is how flexible is this or that industry, how able are they to realize their innovative potential in this environment?

In software development it is so easy to get up and walk out of an unfavorable ecosystem that many of those who have a promising idea and are ready to make a start of it prefer not to suffer the problems inherent in Russian life. They just go to Silicon Valley, or at least to Finland, where they are received with open arms. Our developers generate a lot of great ideas but the results are, unfortunately, not Russian.

In Russia, even basic corporate law does not comply with international standards. There are problems with the protection of intellectual property. The tax legislation does not provide the measures needed to spur innovation. Social consciousness is still wary of individual success. Can it be said that the Russian system is favorable to an innovation economy? I think not. There is a spirit of enterprise, wonderful young people and some great ideas. But they need to rush into the breach daily to achieve anything. Not everyone is willing to make such sacrifices.

As a result, the share of innovative products as part of Russia’s GDP is much lower than in more developed innovation ecosystems. The state does take the individual steps – building industrial parks, investing in innovation enclaves like Skolkovo. But while this is a great project, it is generally ineffective. In order to display an innovative economy, we need to reform the existing economic system. So far we have not seen many such reformers.

In the last two years the SECR conference has changed for the better under your direction. How do you plan to develop the conference in future?

I took up its organization in 2011, when I was between projects. The reputation of the conference had deteriorated to the point that most of our initial efforts were to repair the wounds to its reputation from years past. In 2011 we did not change anything in the conference format, but rather tried to improve what was already in place. In 2012, it was hard because I was already working with First Line Software. But on the other hand, we had already established a team that knew what to do and how to do it. We altered the process used for the selection of reports and expanded our activities.

In the future it may be possible to move the conference from Moscow to another city, such as Nizhny Novgorod or St. Petersburg. There are ideas about how to create a different program. However, the essence of the conference will remain unchanged. SECR is a place where professionals from the world of software engineering can gather and solve the problems that they face. This is its uniqueness.

Russia is justifiably proud of its success in the international programming competitions. But do you think that our universities, which educate scores of elite professionals, have a system in place to train the masses of personnel necessary to meet the demand of the IT industry?

Having programming champions helps the industry. And last year winners from Russia and China dominated at these international events. America’s lead is long gone, but that does not prevent it from being the world leader on the IT market. For those countries that have yet to prove their right to a leadership role, such recognition helps solve an image problem.

A better question is whether or not to call such champions elite professionals. This is programming as a sport, but not a profession. In Russia, there are universities and departments which train professionals with a capital “P.” The problem is that there are very few such places. The market is desperately short of qualified personnel.

Why can’t we build a training system that will meet the needs of the market? I do not have answer to this question. Now we are even seeing a reduction in the number of scholarships available for the IT profession because the field is becoming less popular among graduates. Someone is needed to promote software engineering as a profession in the schools. There are some very bad things happening with specialized secondary education. We may need to change the model used for training. It is not necessary to get a master’s degree, or even bachelor’s degree, to become a good programmer. We need to develop a lower qualification. But for this to happen we need to attract competent teachers to the technical colleges. Still that won’t solve the problem of decent salaries for university professors, not to mention those teaching in vocational colleges. So we return to the question of an innovative economy. In a country where the teaching profession is unpopular, and the professors receive starvation wages, it is difficult to provide human capital of high enough quality.

But I do not want to end the conversation on a pessimistic note. The potential of the Russian software industry is huge, and the process of realizing this potential will, sooner or later, be supported by the necessary reforms at the national level.

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  • I am always delighted to participate in SECR. On the one hand, the conference attracts me by really work atmosphere and environment, by a big number of speakers whom are interesting to hear, and on the other hand, by numerous round tables devoted to various problems which seem to be really vital to the major part of participants. I am really pleased with the informal atmosphere which always predominates on the sessions themselves as well as in the lobby talks within the backroom space. All these actions are usually held on a very high professional level. It is also great that in spite of purely engineering scope of the conference many other topics related to the software engineering are also discussed here, such as human resources and training in IT companies, IP protection etc. No doubts, that SECR is considered to be a world-class conference and comprehensively reflects the status of IT industry in Russia as well as development trends in the world.

    Vyacheslav Nesterov
    General Manager of the Software Development Center
    EMC Russia

  • Thank you for letting me participate in such a great experience. I really enjoyed all presentations I have attended. Great speakers and vast diversity of talks let me learn so much in such a short time.

    Kamil Grabowski
    Software Developer
    Menlo Innovations

  • At the last year’s event, we heard from Dr. Jeff Sutherland, the co-inventor of Scrum, that his company Scrum Inc. was launching a new Scrum capability assessment methodology. Since it is always extremely valuable to learn from the best, we decided to undergo the assessment, and as a result First Line became the first software firm in the world to be awarded an official Scrum Capability Rating by Scrum Inc.

    Alexander Pozdniakov
    CEO
    First Line Software

  • As a speaker I really liked the conference organization — everything was quick and exactly as was agreed. As a participant I really enjoyed the conference program. Sometimes due to two or even three interesting reports in parallel tracks, it was almost impossible to make a choice, but I think it is a good thing for a conference.

    Maxim Dorofeev
    Managing partner
    Multiskill.ru

  • SECR was a remarkable event, in a number of ways. The quality and breadth both of the presenters and attendees made this a world-class conference on software engineering of great value to academics and practitioners alike. It was particularly useful and rewarding for those of us coming from abroad to learn something about Russia today and the state of the Russian software industry. It is an impressive and growing community that will only increase in importance in years to come.

    Michael Cusumano
    Professor
    MIT Sloan

  • It was nice being back in Moscow and at CEE-SECR. It is a very well organized conference you have, quite different in scope from the normal “western” conferences I attend — and I mean that positively. There is a more practitioner approach, but still some academic touch. And you seem to have a very enthusiastic — and growing — audience attending. So you must be on the right track.

    Lars Bendix
    Associate professor
    Lund University, Sweden

  • SECR is an impressive conference: it covers a broad range of computer science topics, has engaged and excited speakers and attendees, is well organized, and generally a lot of fun to attend. It’s a great place to learn about new topics and meet experts in the field.

    Chris Lattner
    Founder and chief architect
    LLVM

  • Thank you for all the excellent arrangements you made for my participation in CEE SEC[R]. The conference was very well managed.

    Dr. Bill Curtis
    Senior Vice President and Chief Scientist
    Cast Software

  • The conference program always keeps focus on important aspects of state-of-the-art software engineering technologies, and provides a unique opportunity and ground to meet in person with world-known gurus in software engineering. I would like to highlight the excellent atmosphere of SECR that enables fascinating discussions and practical experience exchange with colleagues from leading IT companies. Participants of the conference have become good friends, and the conference itself can be considered an annual meeting of Software Engineering Club members.

    Alexander Babkin
    Manager of Quality Engineering team
    Motorola Mobility St. Petersburg

  • The SECR-2011 conference pleasantly surprised with the quite uncommon for scientific forums mix of intelligence and creativity, highly informative reports, participants’ real interest in learning, and all this with an excellent organizational support. Many thanks to the organizers who took care about all the details, which made participation in the conference pleasant, interesting and very useful.

    Dr.Yuri Karpov
    Professor
    SPbSTU (Polytech)

  • CEE-SECR is different from other conferences: successful smiling friendly people give the impression that I was on another planet; The conference is well organized and comfortable for participants, there was a speakers’ room, WiFi, space for discussions with a board and a screen. A pleasant fact for me was that at the last moment, when I was about to leave on a plane one of the participants told me he was going to SECR for only 2 reports, one of which is mine.

    Boris Shteinberg
    Professor
    Southern Federal University (Russian Federation)

  • I was very impressed with the Software Engineering Conference Russia. In part, this was due to the hard work of the organizers and sponsors of the conference. And in part, the success of the conference was a result of the desire of Russian software professionals to network, learn, and advance the state-of-the-practice. This is a hallmark of our emerging discipline: the professionalization of software engineering. The enthusiasm of the attendees and speakers at SECR was notable. All who were associated with the conference are to be congratulated.

    Mark Paulk
    Carnegie Mellon researcher
    CMM co-author

  • I truly enjoyed speaking at SECR. The hospitality given to the speakers was exceptional and the conference was very well run. I am looking forward to returning soon!

    Mark Lines
    Managing Partner
    Scott W. Ambler + Associates

  • CEE-SEC(R) goes from strength to strength, year to year. Each year larger, and more important, better: better papers, better speakers, even a better venue! The Object Management Group is proud to participate, and I personally tremendously enjoyed my participation and look forward to 2013. This is one of the best software engineering events in Eastern Europe – and perhaps the world.

    Richard Soley
    Chairman and CEO
    Object Management Group

  • The conference was very well organized! All information was available on the website in advance. The leading experts and interesting speakers were invited from Russia and around the world. Selected presentations were relevant and informative. The round tables devoted to innovations, investment, forecasts for the future were very interesting. Many thanks to the organizers!

    Evgeny Philippov
    Director, CIS
    Exigen Services

  • Thumbs up for the organizers of the SECR conference. The event was extremely well organized and managed, and I derived enormous satisfaction from meeting up with very interesting people and making lots of extremely useful contacts among the Software Engineering professionals. Keep up the good job!

    Tatiana Danielyan
    Deputy Director of Linguistic Product Department
    ABBYY

  • Thanks to the organizers for a great event. There were many interesting presentations, lively discussions and bright personalities. In particular we noticed a close connection between generations and unexpectedly large common ground between academia and practitioners.

    Alexander Spiridonov
    Head of software testing and maintenance
    Omnicomm

  • I was privileged to speak at CEE-SECR in 2011 to a large group of Russian software experts on the future of Scrum. It is inspiring to see how over the last few years, Scrum has taken hold and is truly transforming the culture of the Russian software industry. This process is driven in large part by the drive and dedication of leaders like the organizers of the CEE-SECR event to make the most advanced knowledge and best practices available to their fellow software professionals. It is professionally gratifying to be a part of this effort.

    Jeff Sutherland
    CEO
    Scrum Inc.