Russian firms switching to local software

Moscow

RUSSIAN companies are increasingly buying homegrown software to avoid international sanctions, posing a challenge to the likes of Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp in the country's US$3 billion local market.

OAO Sberbank's life insurer in February started an online service running local operating system Rosa-Linux using an open-source PostgreSQL database, skipping alternatives from Microsoft, Oracle and International Business Machines Corp (IBM). Late last year, OAO Gazprom's oil division completed testing of GeoMate, its own software used to analyse geological data and designed to replace applications from companies including Emerson Electric Co.