Novosibirsk IT Center for 100+ high tech companies inagurated yesterday

Yesterday, the Russian Federal Minister of Tele- and mass communications Igor Shchegolev inaugurated the first part of the IT Center (Tekhnopark) in Novosibirsk Scientific Center:

Here is the opening procedure: the minister says:

 Alexey Ershov, LEDAS CEO, receives a certificate which confirms that LEDAS (one  of 100+ high tech companies) is a resident of the Tekhnopark: 

As soon as the minister left the meeting, people ate a huge cake shaped as the building just opened:

 and could enjoy a kind of break dance show:

As for the offices, they are under intensive bottom-up and 24x7 construction: LEDAS plans to move into the Tekhnopark by this summer

Here you may find some official information, e.g. the construction was initiated in late summer of 2010, so far one billion rubles (~ $30M) was invested (about 2/3 from federal budget and 1/3 - from the regional)...  

Brief English verion of the web-site of the above mentioned ministry /  

Sadistic Developers and User’s Interface

My background, including the first steps in my professional life, is in software developing. Nevertheless, almost from the outset of my studies and carrier path (and the more so when I forever joined the community of naïve users) I always had a tendency to react badly to what I would call sadistic developers’ complexes (or – the show of muscle, or - Machismo playing in the nerds’ heads:)) that seem to infiltrate any user’s interface; and so on a regular basis I dreamed about a perfect product.

Well, the ideal does not and cannot exist. Still, as I gradually replaced one of the early HTC and so cumbrous in every respect lap- and desktop computers with Apples, I feel how my end-user pain subsides: I know they are thinking more about us...

English translation of my Russian post was made by Olga Luckashenko.

One relatively inexpensive way to change your life: both in CAD and in general

A 2011-year record of a number of COFES-participants from CIS can now be overcome. Almost at New Year midnight Brad Holtz has updated a current list of participants  of the April Arizona event, now the list includes:

- Three representatives of ASCON who have already visited Arizona in 2011 – CEO M. Bogdanov, head of innovation department O. Zykov, and ASCON’s key technologist V.Panchenko,

- LEDAS CEO and leading technologist Alexey Ershov, and

- a bright CIS expert in AEC&BIM Alexander Bausk.

For the Russian participants, COFES-2011 was rather fruitful (see "Get back! Personal Impressions from COFES-2011"), note in particular some concrete contracts: ASCON-LEDAS (see "LEDAS Implements Variational Direct Modeling in KOMPAS-3D") and ASCON-Lightworks (see "New KOMPAS-3D V13 from ASCON integrates Lightworks Artisan") to say nothing about a lot of indirect value which for sure will be materialized in future. 

As far as I know, a number of the participants from CIS may still increase, in any case, I recommend such Russian CAD/PLM vendors as Top Systems, NanoSoft and ADEM  to seriously consider their visiting Arizona in April which might be very useful for global development of these companies. Just after his registration  for COFES-2012. A.Bausk modestly said on Twitter "Four hours before the New Year, I have done one life-changing thing: if everything comes out, wait for my tweets from a very important CAD-event".