Microinform

Areas of activity

At the beginning of 2014, the company conducts authorized training: training and certification programs, training kits for specialists and instructors, laboratory workshops of 3Com, Cisco, Microsoft, EMC, VMware, Fujitsu, Novell, Oracle, MIS Training Institute and others.

Company history

1988: Establishment of the joint venture "Microinform," computer trade, training

The Microinform company was formed in June 1988. Its actual creator, Boris Friedman. In the second half of the eighties, in the era of perestroika and the nascent cooperative movement, colossal prospects were opened up for energetic and enterprising people - finally there was an opportunity to realize the experience and knowledge accumulated over many years.

In 1987, Boris Fridman already had solid experience in the oil and gas industry. His track record included NPO Soyuzgazoavtomatika and GIVC Minneftegazstroy, where he was engaged in data transmission systems. But life made another turn: the director of the GIVC, under whose leadership Boris Mikhailovich worked, moved to another job - he became the rector of the Central Interdepartmental Institute for Advanced Training at the V.V. Kuybyshev Moscow Civil Engineering Institute (TsMIPKS). And at the end of 1987, he invited Friedman to his job. "I agreed," recalls Boris Mikhailovich, "and taught for a month. But I quickly realized that this was not mine, so I decided to leave, although I had already been promised the position of assistant professor. '

It was not difficult to find a use for your forces. A market economy was emerging in the country, and the most forward-thinking and courageous people took their first steps in a new field, creating their own firms. By that time, there were already several companies that managed to gain fame and authority in a short period. One of the pioneers of the new era was the Soviet-American joint venture Dialogue. The stories of Peter Mature, the head of this company, made a huge impression on Fridman. Just think, the director of the company could independently solve any issues: choose suppliers, customers, conclude contracts, send people on foreign business trips. At that time, it looked, if not heresy, then certainly fantastic. Indeed, under socialism, which was still strong in 1987, the State Planning Commission and the ministries decided for everyone - to whom, who and for what amount to buy, on what business trips to go. And here... everything is so simple, and you do not depend on anyone.

"This intrigued me very much, and I began to think, what is happening in the country and the economy?" - says Boris Fridman. Soon he witnessed another event - the Soviet-French joint venture Interkvadro was established.

acquaintances worked there, and judging by their stories, the activities of the joint venture were radically different from the usual foundations of the Soviet enterprise. Yes, I myself saw. For example, they could hold a press conference if they believed it was necessary for business. This was the second powerful impulse that determined my future decision, 'Friedman noted

The final point was a meeting with representatives of the Soviet-Austrian joint venture Prosistem. It took place in the spring of 1988 at one of the Moscow exhibitions on automation. The heads of the joint venture, including Fridman's good acquaintances, talked about what equipment they supply to the country and how the company works. "I made the final decision to go into business as well," Friedman said. - Since others are doing so well, I also need to do something '.

The preparatory period did not take much time - it took several months to complete all the formalities and business negotiations. Boris Mikhailovich also created his company as a joint venture - there were simply no other alternatives to open a non-state company at that time. Moreover, according to the then existing laws, the Soviet side should have owned 51% of the company, and foreign partners - 49%. The founder of our country was TsMIPKS. The rector of the institute asked Friedman in detail about the plans and, without thinking for a long time, approved of his undertaking. So the company was born largely due to the support of this person. The foreign co-founder was the Hungarian enterprise Telefondyar. Ties with this company were long-standing - Friedman worked with them for many years, while still an employee of the Minneftegazstroy State Research Center. Hungarians supplied quite large quantities of data transmission equipment, they even bought from them such exotic at that time as data transmission multiplexers.

Boris Fridman honestly admits that in 1988 neither he nor the Hungarian partners really imagined what business was in question, and in what area the new company would work. "They asked me," Do you even understand what you're going to do?, "" Friedman recalls. - Without batting an eyelid, I confidently replied: "Of course, yes! '. Well, then let's try, the Hungarians agreed."

However, this situation was typical of the late 80s. Almost everything had to be created from scratch. Newly-minted presidents and CEOs of companies did not have the necessary experience, knowledge, skills. What are the directors and presidents there. There was no sensible legislation. Neither officials nor state structures imagined where the situation would "rule." They acted intuitively, to the touch. They were guided only by vague instructions from above - they decided that at this stage of perestroika it was necessary to create a joint venture.

By the way, the certificate of registration of the company "Microinform" was issued on the form under the number 60. In the USSR, it was the 60th non-state company. And Boris Friedman became its CEO. In addition to him, in the early summer of 1988, when Microinform was just born, another person worked in the company, a former employee of the Ministry of Finance, who helped with the paperwork. Soon several programmers were invited, and by September of that year, a commercial director, accountant and HR manager came to the company.

September 14, 1988 The first press conference dedicated to the opening of "Microinform." Boris Friedman is second from right.

The directions of activity of the newly made company were determined very quickly. First of all, the head of Microinform thought about how the company will make money? The answer suggested itself - to sell computers. Then the supply of equipment was a profitable and popular activity.

Nevertheless, from a commercial point of view, the main focus of Microinform was the computer trade.

But, as Boris Friedman recalls, "I wasn't very interested. Working at NPO Soyuzgazoavtomatika and GIVC Minneftegazstroy, I was engaged in solving many interesting problems, including participating in serious developments. Therefore, even before the creation of Microinform, I dreamed that my company would specialize in the field of development. And almost immediately after registering the company, we thought that it would be good to create a training center. True, everyone understood that these two directions would be unprofitable, but still decided not to turn off the chosen path. In the end, no one forbade doing this "for the soul." "

So, almost from the first day, the general director appreciated all the pros and cons of "free swimming" and used his powers.

years ago, the attitude towards trade was very different, not the same as it is now," Boris Friedman said in 2006. - Merchants and merchants did not inspire much confidence. But the words "development" and "training" were associated with intellectual activity, carried the halo of a certain noble mission '.

Under the ministries and departments of those years, there were numerous research institutes that solved quite specific problems. And Microinform was an independent company not associated with any serious ministry. And for these reasons, she found herself away from applied developments. Therefore, Microinform decided to focus on creating an intelligent product that would have a wide demand. In fairness, it is worth noting that Boris Fridman hatched the idea of ​ ​ developing even before the registration of Microinform. He even decided what exactly he would develop. The choice fell on the Lexicon program.

In September 1988, the first steps were taken in the field of training, when the first group of students began classes. They were taught basic things - how to work with a computer. "From the very beginning, we took the organization of the educational process very seriously," says Boris Fridman. "We had a classroom equipped with twenty computers. In our brochures, we wrote that each listener is provided with a separate PC. True, in our company, training was inexpensive, so we did not receive profit from this area for a long time. " This later learning centers began to grow like mushrooms, "Norton Commander/DOS/Windows/Word/Lexicon" ads hung on each pole.

1989

Revision of the editor "Lexicon"

Personal computers quickly entered everyday life. Not only engineers and programmers were already knocking on the keys, but also secretaries, printing letters, certificates, orders and orders. The late 1980s was an era of undivided domination by three software products - MS-DOS, Norton Commander, and "Lexicon." The programs "went" on floppy disks, at that time still five-inch, and users enthusiastically exchanged new versions.

And in such a situation, Boris Friedman came up with a "completely crazy" thought - to make Lexicon a real, full-fledged product. To look no worse than Western programs, to be sold in stores, in a box and with instructions to the user. Why "Lexicon"? The answer is simple - there were no other mass programs at that time.

As a man of action, Boris Fridman immediately set about implementing the idea. He contacted Yevgeny Veselov, the author of The Lexicon, and invited him to talk.

"Veselov, who at that time worked at the All-Russian Center of the Academy of Sciences, was already a famous programmer and knew his price," recalls Friedman. - Therefore, the first conversations turned out to be difficult. I told him that I was going to create a company that would be different from existing firms, and also that I had a great desire to engage in development and enter the market with a specific product. '

Apparently, Veselov did not really believe Friedman. At first, he was wary of this idea, but after several meetings, seeing the determination and perseverance of the future head of Microinform, he agreed to cooperate. At the same time, Veselov said that he would not work at Microinform, but suggested creating a team in the company from people close to him with whom he worked on Lexicon. Evgeny Veselov left behind the role of the scientific director of the project. That fell short of Friedman's plans, but the CEO had no choice, and he agreed with Veselov's proposals. He quickly sent sensible programmers, they were registered to work at Microinform and the development of Lexicon continued at a new level. But the idyll did not last long.

In early 1989, Veselov received an invitation to go to work in Norway.

"It was a tangible blow to developments," says Boris Fridman. - It was out of the question that Veselov went to work at Microinform and did not go to Norway. Moreover, he took from us one of the leading developers'.

Of course, all opportunities were used in order not to curtail work on Lexicon - Veselov tried to lead the process from Norway, and Microinform was waiting for his return and, especially for him, for a total of more than two years, kept the vacant position of technical director for development.

Share of 10% in the joint venture "Aquarius System Integral"

From a commercial point of view, the main activity of Microinform was the trade in computers. It was thanks to the sales of equipment that the company could finance software development and training in the early years of its existence. But the matter was not limited to supporting its unprofitable directions. Microinform played an important role in the formation and development of such large IT companies as Aquarius and Soft-tronik.

Boris Friedman remembers the twists and turns of these stories well. One of the first contracts for the supply of equipment was signed with the German company TEB Impex, which promoted the PC of the Taiwanese company Aquarius. Seeing the high demand for PCs in Russia, TEB Impex management decided to open production in our country. The Russian Aquarius was born in April 1989, when the joint venture Aquarius System Integral was created, the founders of which were five legal entities from the USSR, including Microinform (then it owned 10% of the shares) and Ivanovo NGO Informatics. The foreign co-founder was the West German TEB Impex. NPO Informatics provided the new joint venture with an unfinished module on the territory of the Radiopribor plant in Shuya. The module was quickly completed, equipped with equipment that was provided by the same TEB Impex, and things went.

Soft-tronik technology sales

Relations with Soft-tronik developed differently. In the fall of 1988, Microinform first participated in some kind of exhibition. Two people went to the company's booth and agreed to meet with the CEO. Later, during the conversation, they asked what the Microinform company was interested in? Friedman replied that he would like to buy Western equipment, but preferably for translated rubles. In those years, it was a kind of analogue of SLE for calculations between CMEA member countries. True, in the late 1980s, the CMEA was already falling apart and transfer rubles could be "attached" only in Poland. To Friedman's surprise, his interlocutors replied that they could supply equipment for such "money." This is how Soft-tronik entered the domestic market. It came out, despite a certain financial risk. "But we didn't risk anything," Friedman recalls. - Under the terms of the transaction, no prepayment from Microinform was required, all settlements were carried out after the delivery of equipment '.

The deal was successful, and the parties decided to continue cooperation. The demand for PCs was constantly increasing, and in order to satisfy it, a joint venture for the production of computers was created in West Berlin, which facilitated the sale of equipment in Russia. After all, formally it was not imported, but our equipment, it was only assembled abroad, and Microinform specialists worked in West Berlin on a rotational basis.

The main consumer of PCs at the turn of the 80s and 90s was state organizations. And in order to supply them with equipment, the company had to obtain a license for foreign trade activities.

"I went for a license to the head of the department of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations," says Boris Fridman. - And I managed to convince the official that our scheme with payment of transfer rubles is beneficial to all, and first of all to the state, which lost these rubles in huge quantities due to the collapse of CMEA. The official, and his name was Mikhail Fradkov, turned out to be a sensible man, and gave the "go-ahead" to obtain a license for foreign economic activity. "

After that, the trading direction at Microinform began to develop at a rapid pace and bring good profits. The company sold computers, printers and was one of the first to begin supplying hardware and software systems.

Xerox technology sales

One of the most successful projects of that time, Boris Fridman considers the supply of Ventura hardware and software systems by Xerox. At first, five units were purchased, and by that time Xerox had delivered no more than a hundred complexes to our country. Then "Microinform," assessing the needs and opportunities of the market, decided to make a larger order.

"The Xerox representative office asked how much do we want to buy?," Says Friedman. - We answered - 600 complexes. Judging by the reaction of Xerox employees, we were considered adventurers. But we confirmed our intentions, and the vendor believed. For them, it was also an incredibly large delivery, and they mobilized the whole company to fulfill the order. And we got a huge discount, almost 70% '.

1991: Obtaining the building and restoring it

The late 80s and early 90s were rich in events. For example, Microinform has its own building on Malaya Ordynka. Its receipt and restoration is a separate chapter in the life of the company. Boris Fridman himself classifies this project as good and good adventures.

The first office of Microinform was located on Kozhevnicheskaya Street, in the premises of TsMIPKS. Several rooms with a total area of ​ ​ 250 square meters. m were provided by the Soviet founder as a statutory contribution. But from the very first days, the CEO dreamed of his own spacious building, where everything would be no worse than in the West. Even the fitness center for employees did not forget to provide. But to get a building in Moscow, in a city whose residents are "spoiled by the housing issue," and even in the Moskvoretsky district - it seemed utopia. However, Boris Fridman was not going to give up.

"We regularly invited representatives of the Moskvorets district party committee to our close 250 squares, repeatedly talked with his first secretary," says Fridman. 'We were promised, then refused, promised again, offered buildings either in the wrong area or completely unsuitable for repair and operation '.

There were also curious cases. Once the general director chose one of the buildings on Pionerskaya. Everything went to the fact that the company would finally get a building. They have already collected the necessary signatures, but stumbled on the latter - the competent authorities "hacked the transfer of the building to Microinform. The reason was soon learned - it turns out that there was some kind of "box" behind the fence. It is impossible that there was a Soviet-Hungarian joint venture nearby.

In the end, the CEO's perseverance and tenacity were rewarded. The authorities believed in the new company and promised to help. Soon, the "Microinform" was given a dilapidated building on Malaya Ordynka. "The spectacle was eerie," Friedman recalls. - The house stood without a roof for several years, there was water around '. It took a year to rebuild and reconstruct. The company received 700 sq. m and on its own turned them into 1500 sq. m. Part of the building was added, the attic was added - the fourth floor. And even the fitness center was not forgotten - they took a place for a sauna and a gym. Microinform celebrated its housewarming in August 1991, two weeks before the coup.

On August 19, 1991, the CEO remembered for life: "I sit in an empty building and think: here I jumped, entrepreneur. Now the State Emergency Committee will be the first to deal with us. They will come and ask: who are they, almost in the center of the capital they rebuilt their building? '. Today you can remember the putsch with irony, now everyone understands that this adventure was doomed to failure, but then it was not to laughter. Programmers went to the White House, brought some leaflets and said that they needed to be multiplied. "I categorically banned it," Friedman recounts. 'Said we're not a political organisation but a commercial firm '. He did not forbid anyone to go to the barricades, this is a personal matter of everyone, but there should be no policy within the company

1992: Authorized Novell Training Center

Microinform mastered the technology of authorized training, which allowed the company to move to a qualitatively different level. The first foreign vendor to decide that it was time to introduce authorized training in Russia was Novell. Representatives of this company visited Microinform in 1992 and were pleasantly surprised by the scope of the activities of the Russian company. In a short time, the parties discussed formalities, and an authorization agreement was signed.

1993: Success of sales of "Lexicon" under DOS

In the fall of 1993, the day the White House was fired upon, Fridman, along with Anatoly Karachinsky, was on a foreign business trip and watched the development of events on TV. They returned to Moscow the next night. It was already known that a curfew was imposed in the city center.

A car came to the airport for Fridman, and Boris Mikhailovich invited Karachinsky to go with him to Moscow. But Karachinsky refused and said he would stay at the hotel until the morning. And Friedman decided to "break through" home. "It was creepy to go," he recalls. - Usually on Leningradskoye highway busy traffic never stops even at night, and here we drive completely alone in complete darkness. And that's when I said to the driver, "Turn back." We sat at Sheremetyevo Airport for several hours before dawn. "

Finally, the term of the Norwegian contract of Yevgeny Veselov, the developer of Lexicon, has expired, he returned to the country, and the leaders of Microinform again raised the question of him leading the development of Lexicon. But the situation in the software market had changed dramatically by that time. Users began to master the new operating system - Windows, and experts perfectly understood that it was the future. Veselov did not have a shortage of ideas, he had already thought through the concept of a text editor for a new platform. At the same time, everyone understood that the "Lexicon" for Windows is actually a new project, which will require a tremendous amount of effort and money. "Is the company ready to take another team of programmers?" Veselov asked Friedman. 'If so, I'll lead the development '. "You couldn't stop and we gave our consent," Friedman said.

And the version of "Lexicon" for DOS was already ready, and it had to be sold. The desire to meet the world level pushed the company to the next, obscure step at that time. The company decided to offer the market a full-fledged box product - put a distribution of the program and detailed instructions for users in a real (the same as for Western companies) box. But in the early 90s in our country it was a curiosity, even finding a production where such boxes could be made was a problem.

"We learned that there is a single enterprise that is able to fulfill our order," Friedman recalled. 'One Kazan plant just recently bought just such a production line '.

Of course, the question arose, how many boxes to order? A number of employees of Microinform believed that first they should limit themselves to a batch of 100-200, from a force of 500 pieces. But the CEO called another figure - 5 thousand. "It was a very large order at the time," Friedman says. 'Largely thanks to our order, the Kazan plant was able to get on its feet '.

As usual, it was not without curiosities. To make the first boxed software product in the Soviet Union look presentable, the heads of Microinform invited professional artists to develop the design of the box. They offered dozens of sketches, none of which the creators of "Lexicon" liked. "In the end, we waved at everything, Veselov came and offered our drawing," says Friedman. "He went into production. The logo was also invented by themselves. '

The fate of the first domestic box was successful. Users willingly bought the "Lexicon" for DOS. In the first year alone, about 20 thousand boxes were sold. For the almost completely pirated Russian market, this was a huge achievement. But from a financial point of view, the situation was not so great - the company did not enter the "plus." The reason is simple - the price of the box was very low. Nevertheless, the project to develop and promote the domestic text editor to the market by all specialists and market analysts of those years was recognized as successful. Is it a joke, in its category of products - text editors - "Lexicon" took first place, its share in the number of installations was estimated at 32%. The honorable second place was taken by Word from Microsoft (23% of the market). And given the unlicensed copies, Lexicon was a generally unattainable leader.

"We had a huge advantage over Microsoft," says Boris Fridman. "Our editor was originally a Russian-language product, and for foreign companies, software Russification in those years posed a certain problem."

By the way, we note that a considerable merit in the promotion of Lexicon belongs to Olga Dergunova, who in the early 90s headed the sales department at Microinform.

The "lexicon" for DOS lived and developed, as befits a normal commercial product - new versions appeared, technical support was established. And the development of a version for Windows was progressing with great difficulty. It seemed that 60% of the work was done, 70%, but the horizon moved further and further. In the end, the leaders of Microinform realized that an end should be put in this matter. Boris Friedman recalls that there were two reasons that forced the development to stop. Firstly, this project was taking more and more money, and the company could no longer reckon with the amount of costs, and secondly, the Word for Windows editor from Microsoft was gaining strength. It was clear to everyone that the American vendor would invest huge funds in software adaptation, marketing and advertising campaign, and Microinform would hardly have enough funds to withstand such a powerful expansion.

The team of programmers was disbanded, Evgeny Veselov went to work at IBS, and later left for the United States. The DOS version of "Lexicon" in "Microinform" continued to be supported for several years, as Boris Friedman assured, "until the last client." And the Lexicon brand was later transferred to Arsenal, which developed its own text editor.

1994: Curtailment of trade, training-only rate, Hungarian exit

The rapidly growing domestic IT market has made its own adjustments to the Microinform business. In 1993-1994 the company began to gradually curtail the sale of individual devices and more engage in the promotion of network equipment and complex solutions. True, the range of network equipment in those years was limited to network cards, and complex solutions were the creation of a LAN and the connection of a PC to it. But this did not last long - the data transmission equipment changed before our eyes, and the solutions became more complex and large-scale. Specialized companies - system integrators - were gaining strength.

"We have seen that we need to invest a lot of money in this area, train specialists," says Boris Fridman. - Our funds did not allow to work simultaneously in several areas, so in the mid-1990s we decided to completely focus on the educational business, and all other areas to curtail. '

But the CEO of Microinform does not believe that the company in the early years of its existence wasted efforts in vain. 'If we had to repeat the whole journey we went through again, we would repeat his step to step, 'Friedman stresses. The development of the company is a natural process, and everything that was done has borne fruit: partners, experience, authority have appeared, and this is more important than net profit.

In the mid-90s, Microinform focused exclusively on the educational business, all other areas of activity were curtailed. By this time, the company had gained a reputation as one of the leading providers of authorized training.

In 1994, Microinform became an authorized training center. Microsoft

In the mid-90s, another important event took place - the joint venture became a Russian company. In several stages, Telefondyar transferred its share to the Russian side. According to Friedman, from the very beginning, the parties understood that the joint venture was a forced form of organization, which was needed only in order to create a non-state company. Accelerated the process of converting Microinform from a joint venture to an LLC message about the purchase by Siemens of the Hungarian founder Telefondyar^[1]..

Press conference on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of "Microinform." Karachinsky (second left), Friedman (standing), Gens (third right), then Dergunova (second right), Goldenberg (far right)

2014: "Lanit Network Academy" and "Microinform" formed an alliance in the hope of surviving

Training centers "Network Academy Lanit" and "Microinform" announced in November 2014 the creation of an alliance for joint training of IT specialists. The structures remain completely independent of each other (a new brand is not being created), but^[2] in^[3].

Companies draw an analogy with air travel, in which a passenger arriving at the airport very often does not know which plane he will fly, and which company will carry out transportation - he relies on the air alliance. The partners are confident that the alliance will allow each center (regardless of which of them the client refers to) to offer a full range of personnel training services. Both centers will form a unified system for managing sales of services, a pool of teachers and a technical support service. At the same time, as the general director of Microinform Boris Fridman says, at the moment there is no talk of reducing staff, although this will depend on the future dynamics of sales. Moreover, he hopes that in the near future the companies will be able to increase their joint staff.

The directions of the educational process of both companies practically do not overlap. Lanit Network Academy is an authorized training center for companies, Cisco,, Citrix Systems,, etc IBM Apple Android. Adobe The Microinform training center presents educational services of such companies as,, on the Russian market. EMS VMware Symantec BMC Software The only common vendor is. Microsoft

Each of the centers has its own special training technologies. So, the "Network Academy" has developed and uses personal, including "cloud" (via the Internet) training. Microinform implements large corporate projects using webinars. Combining these services is designed to improve the efficiency of the educational process, and customers should be able to spend more efficiently by placing a comprehensive training order in a single structure.

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