50% of Russian companies faced problems with renewing licenses for foreign software

According to A2: Research, carried out in April 2023, among 1,200 representatives of various sectors of the economy, 50% of Russian companies encountered difficulties in renewing licenses for foreign software in 2022. In addition, 32% of respondents complained about the poor quality of technical support, 31% about problems with paying for services, and 10% – for the unstable operation of foreign software.

The biggest risks are associated with software that is used at critical information infrastructure (CII) facilities. Disabling updates on such objects can lead to a violation of information security (IB) and data loss, experts confirm.

In addition, some foreign manufacturers blocked the operation of their devices and software remotely, which could lead to serious consequences for the life of the country. For example, if the National Payment Card System (NSPK) had not switched in advance from Oracle Java to the Russian Java platform, then transactions with Visa and Mastercard cards would not have been possible in Russia after these payment systems left the country, explains a representative of Axiom JDK.

The problems also affected state organizations and large commercial companies that actively used foreign software for their activities. For example, the Russian Ministry of Construction was forced to replace Avaya communications solutions with a domestic product from IVA Technologies due to the inability to receive technical support and updates from a foreign vendor, says a market participant.

A similar situation occurred with equipment from Siemens and Schneider Electric, as well as with infrastructure equipment for communications Cisco and devices for audio and video communications Poly. In many cases, Russian customers have not received compensation for purchased but revoked licenses and technical support from foreign manufacturers.

In addition, many Russian companies have lost access to foreign cloud services such as Azure, AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google Cloud. This could lead to the loss of important information if users did not create backup copies in advance. There were also difficulties with choosing a program for corporate communications, voice calls and video communication. The functionality of domestic systems does not yet allow to completely replace popular foreign platforms.

In this regard, Russian business has realized the importance of switching to domestic software, according to A2:Research. The majority of respondents (58%) stated that it is important for them that the software be developed in Russia. 57% reported that they had already switched to domestic software last year. 45% study offers of various Russian vendors. The transition to domestic software has several advantages, including the ability to customize to the needs of a particular customer, experts say.