17:12 | 13.07.11 | News | 3382

Armenia should prove to the world that here one can run IT business, ABBYY Vice-President said

Yerevan/Mediamax/. Armenia should prove to the world that here one can run IT business, and then try to involve foreign capital, ABBYY Vice-President Aram Pakhchanyan said in Yerevan today.

ABBYY is the author of famous computer programs, such as Lingvo and Fine Reader.

Mediamax reports that, making a speech at “Own IT business: What to do and how to do it” master class, Aram Pakhchanyan said that in order to gain international fame, one Armenian IT company should be able to establish itself internationally.

“Armenia has not become an authority in IT sphere yet; Russia has the same problem too. Even ABBYY sometime faced that problem: when we were just entering the U.S. market, we had to “hide” the fact that we were a Russian company”, Aram Pakhchanyan said.

As positive factors for establishing IT business in Armenia, Aram Pakhchanyan singled out the low level of competition in the local labor market. According to him, the availability of Diaspora is also a positive factor, since it can be useful in terms of finding capital, as well as in terms of involving labor while opening offices in foreign countries.

According to the assessment of ABBYY Vice-President, another positive factor is the wide opportunity of Armenian IT Companies to work in CIS wide Russian speaking markets.

Aram Pakhchanyan also spoke of free and “freemium” applications and web resources. “It is obvious that in order to found a business in such conditions, initial funding is required, as well as a clear-cut business strategy. One should also remember that the share of people paying for your product in the entire number of people using it will make 8% at most”, ABBYY Vice-President said.