Some Russian state-owned companies and critical infrastructure (CII) facilities will not be able to comply with Presidential Decree No. 166 and switch to exclusively domestic operating systems and software from January 1, 2025.
They have until January 1, 2026, to switch to Russian database management systems, but there is less than a month left to switch to Russian-made OS and software. According to various estimates, only about 15–20% of CII entities will manage to switch to domestic solutions. Another 40% of foreign software and information security tools at critical infrastructure facilities in Russia are not replaced by domestic solutions at all.
As Kirill Alifanov, Deputy General Director for IT at Sheremetyevo Airport, stated at the "Pulse of Digitalization" forum on December 6, at a meeting in the Ministry of Digital Development dedicated to the implementation of the decree, only 20% of the companies participating in the meeting were able to carry out import substitution on time.
Out of 25 companies, five reported that they had fully complied with the presidential decree and carried out import substitution. It was not said how many hundreds of billions were spent on this, but the main thing is that they fulfilled the decree.
The Kommersant newspaper contacted the Ministry of Digital Development for comment on this situation, and they noted that "all companies participating in the meeting reported that they are successfully switching to domestic software at CII facilities". If any organization does not switch to Russian solutions by January 1, 2025, a strict analysis of the reasons for this phenomenon will be carried out. The Ministry of Digital Development is also considering the possibility of obliging such companies to conclude forward contracts.
Among the most popular reasons for delaying the transition to Russian software and Russian OS are the need for a long testing period for specialized software, which can take months or years. For example, this applies to solutions for the aviation industry or the banking sector. Another major problem is that not all Russian OSs are compatible with some specialized industry software. Finally, there is also a lack of necessary analogues to foreign solutions, and insufficient reliability of domestic analogues, despite their diversity.
Earlier it became known that Russian state-owned companies may be required to purchase software from the register of the Ministry of Industry and Trade on a mandatory basis.
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