Massuch Ilya Issovich

Massuch Ilya Issovich

Biography

Sales to the public sector in IBM Russia

13 years worked in the Russian branch of IBM, where he was responsible, in particular, for the sale of solutions to state customers.

Among other things, he oversaw a deal to supply IBM equipment to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, during which a scandal erupted. For more information, see IBM History.

2008: Advisor to the Minister of Communications

From autumn 2008 to July 2010 - Advisor to the Minister of Communications and Mass Media Igor Shchegolev. The portal of electronic public services, the creation of which was coordinated by Ilya Massukh, has become one of the brightest projects of the Ministry of Communications.

2010: Appointment of Deputy Minister of Communications

In July 2010, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed Decree No. 1197-r on the appointment of Ilya Massukh as Deputy Minister of Communications and Mass Media. In the new position, Massukh, among other things, will oversee the provision of public services in electronic form. "The seventh deputy minister will strengthen the direction associated with the implementation of the instructions of the country's leadership on electronic government," the ministry said.

The ministry claims that Ilya Massukh was not appointed instead of one of the working deputies and, despite the restrictions on the number of seats, all seven will continue to work. "No personnel decisions are expected regarding other deputies," the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications told CNews. A few months after this, Dmitry Severov and Aleksei Soldatov left the posts of deputy ministers.

2011: IBM Lobbying

As Deputy Minister, Ilya Massukh, according to market participants, continued to support IBM sales in Russia. So, at the end of August 2011, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation suspected that Rostelecom purchased IBM equipment through the system integrator NVision Group to fulfill the contract with the Ministry of Communications, overestimating its cost by 270 million rubles. At the same time, schemes from "numerous intermediary firms" were used.

Almost the entire federal segment of the electronic government of Russia, the development of which was supervised by Massukh, is located in two Rostelecom data centers in Moscow - on Sushchevsky Val (northern part of the Third Transport Ring) and on Goncharnaya Street (Taganskaya metro station area). Information systems and equipment during this period are partially owned by the Ministry of Communications, partially leased from Rostelecom.

The software and hardware infrastructure of the key electronic government systems - the Unified Portal of Public Services (EPGU) and the Interdepartmental Electronic Interaction System (SMEV) - was purchased in two stages, follows from the state contract of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications with Rostelecom^[1]

In 2009 EPGU , more than 20 servers, HP several routers Cisco and storage systems were purchased Hitachi for. Four DBMS Oracle blade servers and a Sun tape library, an HP server, a Hitachi disk array and were used for SMEV. switchboard Brocade The Oracle solution was purchased as a software bus.

In 2010, with the arrival of Ilya Massukh in the Ministry of Communications, computing power expanded. This time mainly due to IBM equipment. The infrastructure of EPGU required 26 new servers, SMEV - five. In addition, IBM equipment since 2010 began to be used in the infrastructure of state automated system "Management," the state sales portal, and the management system of departmental informatization.

2012: Dismissal from the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, member of the NVision Group SD

On May 21, 2012, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications changed its head. Nikolai Nikiforov, ex-Minister of Communications of Tatarstan, was appointed to replace Igor Shchegolev, who came to the government with Vladimir Putin and left for the Kremlin with him.

On May 25, 2012, it became known that Ilya Massukh was leaving the ministry. An official of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, a top manager of a telecom operator and a source in an IT company told Vedomosti about this. Massukh talked to Nikiforov for an hour and the result was such a decision, one of Vedomosti's interlocutors knows. At the moment, Massukh is on vacation, a source in the ministry said. Usually, the deputy minister is dismissed by the government on the proposal of the minister, says a representative of the Ministry of Communications. But such a document to the government, according to him, has not yet been sent.

As deputy minister, he oversaw projects related to IT - "electronic government," the creation of a national software platform (NPP), the installation of webcams to monitor the presidential elections in Russia via the Internet. Just for the successful implementation of the project with cameras, Massukh was promised a post in another ministry, the manager of the IT company heard. Massukh can go to the Ministry of Finance to Anton Siluanov, a source in the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications heard. But a source in the Ministry of Finance did not confirm this.

"In recent years, the ministry has greatly increased the degree of work in the field of IT, says IBSergey Matsotsky, chairman of the board. "And Massuch's role in that was significant. But the work in this direction was somewhat superficial, and the really interesting problems, such as the creation of interdepartmental systems and resources, are just starting, says Matsotsky. The appointment of Rostelecom as the only contractor for the e-government project is also doubtful. An alternative could be a state agency that would order work to market contractors, he said.

work also had pros and cons, says Dmitry Komissarov, general director of Pingwin Software. For example, the programming community managed to convince the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the need for competition in the development of NPP, although initially the competition for the creation of an OS prototype was focused on specific developers, he says. But the ministry did not hold a competition for the creation of the NPP, Komissarov complains.

On June 27, 2012, Massukh explained to Vedomosti that he had disagreed with the new minister Nikolai Nikiforov. According to Massukh, the Minister believes that the development of the National Program Platform (NPP) is futile. Instead, it is necessary to conclude a global agreement with Microsoft for all executive authorities - it will give special prices and thereby increase the efficiency of public procurement. At the 2012 St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Nikiforov met with top Microsoft managers, Massukh said. A global agreement with vendors for government agencies is a quick victory that leads to nothing, he said. Now Russia is one of the few countries in the world capable of making its own operating systems. And the conclusion of such contracts with foreign companies puts an end to the domestic industry, because such giants as Google, Microsoft are not interested in the development of Russian programmers, Massukh believes#^[2]

At the forum, the minister met with Microsoft International President Jean-Philippe Courtois and Microsoft President in Russia Nikolai Pryanishnikov, a Microsoft spokesman confirmed. The meeting discussed potential cooperation, in particular the use of cloud technologies in the work of government and business bodies. But commercial contracts were not discussed, he emphasizes.

There is no other project, except for NPP, capable of ensuring the information security of Russia in the era of cyber wars, government computer viruses such as Stuxnet or Flame, etc., said Dmitry Komissarov, general director of Pingwin Software (a participant in the NPP project).

Massukh also disagrees with Nikiforov's proposal to give the development of regional e-government segments to the regions. "Creating disparate systems in regions that should integrate in the future is utopia. It did not work out in the USA, it will not work out with us either, "says Massukh. There should be a single federal system that will connect all disparate departments in the regions, he said.

"I have a feeling that the new ministry can make several mistakes - in the field of Russia's dependence on vendor solutions plus a volunteer in the regions to create disparate departmental IT systems," Massukh summed up.

Nikiforov himself declined to comment.

As Massukh himself told CNews, in June 2012, at a meeting in the presidential administration, his candidacy for the post of chief designer of State Automated System Vybory was supported by the head of the presidential administration of Russia Sergei Ivanov^[3].

According to CNews, the former Minister of Communications Igor Shchegolev, later working as an assistant to President Vladimir Putin, proposed to appoint Massukh as general designer of State Automated System Vybory.

Massuch says he doesn't remember the author of this initiative. At a meeting in the administration, according to him, in particular, the head of the CEC Vladimir Churov was present, and later at a planning meeting in the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, this issue was discussed with Minister Nikolai Nikiforov: "He was also not against it."

However, according to Massukh, the appointment meeting was not followed. He says he does not seek to become chief designer and calls the position an unpaid "public burden."

"At the time of the planning meeting, Ilya Issovich worked in the ministry, but then he wrote a letter of resignation," Nikolai Nikiforov told CNews. - Today (August 2012), from the point of view of the Ministry of Communications, the question of changing the general designer is not worth it. I talked with Vladimir Churov about this, as far as I understand, his department has a similar position. "

On July 3, 2012, it became known that Deputy Minister of Communications Ilya Massukh left his post. The corresponding government order was published in the bank of regulatory documents.

"To release Massukh Ilya Issovich from the post of Deputy Minister of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation at his request," the text of the document says.

On October 9, 2012, it became known that Ilya Massukh in the fall of 2012 joined the board of directors of the system integrator NVision Group as an independent director. According to him, the decision to include him in the board of directors of NVision was made collectively. NVision Group is the largest system integrator, and I am interested in cooperation with this company as an IT specialist, "he added. According to Ilya Massukh, participation in the board of directors of NVision will not interfere with his work in the Fund for the Development of Information Democracy.

2016: Director of the Competence Center for Import Substitution in ICT

In September 2016, Ilya Massukh became director of the ICT Import Substitution Competence Center, registered in the same month. The founders of the center were the associations "Domestic Software," the Institute for Internet Development (IRI) and the "Expert Center for Electronic State." The Massuch-owned Information Democracy Fund is a co-founder of the Electronic State Expert Center. For more information about the center and its tasks, see a separate article:

• ICT Import Substitution Competence Center

2018: CEO of a company owned by a shareholder of New Cloud Technologies

In July 2018, Massukh headed Ai Ti Invest. The main owner of Ai Ti Invest, lawyer Alexei Kirsanov, is also a shareholder of New Cloud Technologies, which produces products under the MyOffice brand.

2022: Inclusion in the review of TAdviser GR activities in the Russian IT market

In April 2022, TAdviser released a detailed review of Government Relations (GR) practices in the Russian IT industry. It contains information on how GR functions are organized in IT companies, who have the strongest GRs in the market, examples of the most successful lobbying stories and much more. Based on a survey of GR specialists, Ilya Massukh in his review was among the most significant figures in the industry when it comes to representing interests in the authorities. Read more here.

2024: Participant in the events around the distribution of grants to the RFRIT, because of which Maxim Parshin ended up in jail

On September 9, 2024, a regular court session was held in the criminal case of the former Deputy Minister of Digital Development Maxim Parshin. The TAdviser correspondent, who visited the court, said that at the meeting this time the testimony of Alexander Pavlov, the general director of RFRIT, was heard . Grants to support import substitution were distributed through the Russian Information Technology Development Fund, which eventually became the backdrop for a high-profile criminal case in which Pavlov is a witness.

The general director of RFRIT in court confirmed the previously put forward version of the accusation that there was lobbying on the part of Maxim Parshin for the interests of companies, the list of which was allegedly provided to him first by the former general director of BFT Holding Alexander Monosov, and then Maxim Parshin himself. In total, there were more than ten companies on the original list.

Alexander Pavlov said that when the list of projects was prepared for the meeting of the grant committee, the companies promoted by Alexander Monosov should not have been submitted to the grant commission for consideration. However, according to him, at one of the meetings, Ilya Massukh, director of the ANO CKIT, prepared new criteria for evaluating projects, which Pavlov was instructed to bring to the grant committee, although he saw such serious changes as a violation of the competitive procedure.

According to the witness, it was these new criteria that allegedly made it possible to include Alexander Monosov's companies in the list of applications and prioritize them for consideration by the grant committee. As a result, all names from the "Monosov list" were included in the final list for consideration from 73 companies. Some of the projects of these companies received pomegranate financing in 2022, and some were postponed to the next budget cycle, that is, for consideration in 2023.

Read more about the criminal case in a separate article.

Hobbies

Bear hunting in Kamchatka 2022

Notes