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Ukraine Holds 4th Largest Programmer Population
andrewuoft points out this BusinessWeek article on the budding technology sector of Ukraine; the article points out that Ukraine has -- "after the U.S., India, and Russia -- the fourth largest number of computer programmers in the world" and that "Even today, scientific institutes each year churn out some 50,000 science or technology graduates. Not surprisingly, Ukrainians don't see why their country can't become a big player in the global technology market, like India."
Maybe this would explain why there seem to be so many Hot, Available Ukrainian Women looking to get out.
What the future of technology needs more than anything is the reversal of the quantity philosophy. More is not always better.
Both the submitter and the FA author seem to have misspelled "Elbonia."
and the server goes down.
Building The Muscle To Be A Tech Player
Ukraine has a bunch of cornfields, a bunch of old steel mills, and not much else. Right? Well, Ukraine also has a budding technology sector, and -- after the U.S., India, and Russia -- the fourth largest number of computer programmers in the world. It was a main center of the Soviet programming industry. The first computer built in continental Europe was made in Ukraine in 1951. Even today, scientific institutes each year churn out some 50,000 science or technology graduates. Not surprisingly, Ukrainians don't see why their country can't become a big player in the global technology market, like India. "We want Ukraine to become a technological country again, not just a country with agriculture and tank production," says Yuri Sivitsky, chairman of Softline, one of Ukraine's largest software producers.
What are the chances? While Ukraine isn't likely ever to rival India, it certainly has the potential to become a player. Just look at Softline. Founded by mathematicians in 1995, it has 500 employees, up from a dozen in 1998. Revenues are set to hit $10 million this year, up 70% from 2003. Its clients include Ingersoll-Rand Co. (IR ) and Hugo Boss.
The offshore programming industry, although small, is growing fast. According to Market-Visio, a research firm in Moscow, Ukraine's software exports will grow 43% this year to $100 million. Around 10,000 programmers are employed in the industry, working for customers such as Boeing (BA ), DaimlerChrysler (DCX ), General Electric (GE ), Citibank (C ), and NASA. Much of the work is customized business software. But gaming is also growing. Kvasar-Micro, Ukraine's largest info tech company, recently landed an order to develop a computer game for mobile handsets.
Ukraine's main selling point is the quality of its mathematical education. Another is cheap labor. An average programmer in Ukraine earns $500 a month, not quite as low as India, but half the level in Moscow and a fraction of programming salaries in the West. But the edge Ukraine gets from high education and low wages is offset by other factors. Around 90% of all software on sale in Ukraine is pirated, so domestic makers can't get the revenue they need to grow. Other problems are a lack of business skills, venture finance, and government support. But things are looking up. Management skills are improving as Ukrainians gain Western experience and earn MBAs. The government is mulling tax incentives for tech investment and starting to tighten piracy laws.
Some of the biggest names in the global technology industry have started to wake up to Ukraine's potential. "Ukraine is building up quickly," says Gerard J. Kleisterlee, CEO of Dutch electronics giant Royal Philips Electronics (PHG ), which makes an array of high-tech goods there. Flextronics International Ltd. (FLEX ), a Singapore electronics powerhouse, recently set up a software design lab in Ukraine, and CEO Michael E. Marks is enthusiastic about the nation's potential as an engineering and design power. If he's right, Ukraine has a digital future.
Indeed, that is where people like Linus Torvalds make an odds-defying explosion into mainstream computing. However, there is more to my statement than just programmer population. Quality also refers to program quality. Not half-assed buggy software that was hurriedly released because of a dealine, and then half-assed patches and updates that were also released on a deadline.
the next Doom3/HL2/Far Cry killer that THQ will publish next year, STALKER: SHadow of Chernobyl is developed by a Ukrainian company called GSC gameworld. They also developed Firestarter if you played it :)
just my 2 bytes
I wouldn't think that emulating India is really the way to go
Yah, they should just run it natively.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Last winter I've got an idea of trying a software competition to develop a video streamer for the network cameras developed by Elphel (both software and hardware are GPL'ed). I decided to try Russian software developers (I'm Russian myself) so I wrote an article in a Russian online magazine "Computerra" and offered a $3000 prize for the best streamer to use with the camera (the code was to retain author's copyright and be released under GNU/GPL). I did not expect many participants and thought I'l sacrifice 3 cameras. But it turned different and I've sent out 9 of them - 4 to Russia, 3 - to Ukraine, 1 - to Germany and 1 to India (the article was in Russian - that restricted participants to Russian-reading).
Of those 9 participants 6 reached the finish line and the winner is Ukrainian Alexander Melichenko. What amazed me was that I've got the first version of his steamer in just a couple weeks after the announcement _before_ he received the hardware! Hi used my online camera to download his application over the Internet and made it working. And the camera uses Axis ETRAX100LX CPU - something he never programmed before.
All that software is now on our Sourceforge project page - https://sourceforge.net/projects/elphel.