IT companies agree not to raise software prices

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In June 2023, at the Digital Industry of Industrial Russia (DIIR) conference, domestic software developers signed the Pricing Charter of Socially Responsible IT Business, in which they agreed not to raise prices for software products above the inflation rate plus 15%. The signing of the charter was caused by a sharp cayman islands whatsapp number database increase in prices for Russian software due to the departure of foreign vendors from the market. Among those who were the first to sign the charter were 1C, Code of Security, MyOffice, TCS (TrueConf), Kaspersky Lab, as well as the RUSSOFT, ARPP Domestic Software, and APKIT associations. Over the 8.5 months that have passed since the appearance of the Pricing Charter of Socially Responsible IT Business, the total number of itssignatoriesreached 34 companies.

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Russian IT companies have signed a charter on self-limitation of software prices. According to the document, they will not raise prices for products by more than 15% plus inflation per year.

According to the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, as of February 13, 2024, the register of domestic software contains products from 7,530 copyright holders. Thus, less than 0.5% of Russian software developers have made a voluntary commitment not to raise prices without control. At the same time, the Association of Computer and Information Technology Enterprises (APKIT) notes that the charter is not a legal document and concerns only issues of business ethics.

"The increase in prices is a fairly general process. The level of our price increase is lower than the growth of market salaries for programmers and prices for equipment," Alexey Kharitonov, head of the department for promoting economic programs at 1C LLC, commented to a ComNews correspondent.

As representatives of several large corporate users told ComNews, 1C announced a price increase back in September 2023.

"1C" approached the price increase for various products in a differentiated manner. According to Alexey Kharitonov, the prices for the most popular item - licenses for "1C:Enterprise 8. PROF" workstations - will rise by 10% from April 1, 2024. For a number of products, especially for the corporate market, the developer will raise prices by 14%. At the same time, prices for many products for small and medium businesses (in particular, "1C:BusinessStart" and the basic "1C:Fresh") will not change in 2024.

For software products and licenses for the corporate market, the price change will occur not in April, but in July 2024. According to Alexey Kharitonov, this is done in order to give users the opportunity to make purchases at old prices or adjust their budgets, since corporate purchasing procedures are longer.

"Since the announcement was made very early, and the level of costs for licenses for our users is not critical, we do not expect any impact on the volume of purchases," said Alexey Kharitonov.

BymessageTASS, in December 2023, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov predicted inflation this year at 4.5%. "This means that 1C, as a signatory to the pricing charter, could raise prices by 19.5% in 2024 - however, in practice, the company will raise prices by 5.5 percentage points, or 30% below the permissible ceiling, even in the corporate sector. This suggests that 1C is focused on long-term relationships with customers," notes Irina Glukhova, Managing Partner of ComNews Research.

Representatives of 1C corporate competence centers and similarly functional divisions in several companies told ComNews that they are not worried about the 14% increase in prices for software products. One of these managers clarified: "But there is an important nuance: the contracts of some corporations with 1C exceeded the price increase date that the developer announced in September as April 1, 2024. This would have led to the corporations having to organize additional procurement tenders. But recently 1C announced that it was postponing the price increase to July 1 - this significantly eases the situation."