Ukraine Gets Byte of the Apple

American computer and software manufacturer Apple Computer is launching a joint-venture initiative designed to establish a multibillion dollar software industry in Ukraine.In partnership with Ukraine's Academy of Sciences, Apple will train up to 2,000 computer programmers a year and set up another five training programs to develop a local software industry. The company projects that Ukraine could take three percent of the world software market, now estimated at $60 billion, within five years.Jack Minsky, director of privately owned subsidiary Apple Computer Ukraine, said if Ukraine and other markets of the former Soviet Union live up to expectations, U.S. computer software production could start to emigrate to Eastern Europe. Two-thirds of the world's software programming industry is currently located in the United States. "In the '80s, hardware manufacturing moved to Asia. The '90s could see a similar trend of software development taking place in Eastern Europe. Ukraine could be a leader in that trend," said Minsky.Computers and Ukraine, where market reforms lag several years behind Russia, may not seem made for each other. But Apple, using Ukrainian statistics, estimates that there are more computer programmers in Kiev than almost any other city in the world.Ukraine's Ministry of Statistics claims that 500,000 computer programming students have left university since 1960. Half of them are believed to be based in Kiev. That gives a potential ratio of one computer programmer to every 10 inhabitants of the capital."Ukraine has a concentration of computer scientists unequalled anywhere in the world, including California's Silicon Valley," said Minsky. The Soviet computer industry was originally based in Kiev before it branched out to Moscow, St. Petersburg and specialized university towns. The first computer built outside the United Kingdom or the United States was constructed in Kiev in the '50s.Minsky plans to turn out 2,000 students a year by 1995 after training teachers in the summer and fall. Apple reckons that the monthly wage for a computer programmer in Ukraine will stabilize after five years at about $250, a fraction of the money a U.S. programmer earns and one quarter of the wage of a computer specialist in India, a country that has been carving itself a niche as an alternative programming center.Minsky hopes that Apple's programs in Ukraine will increase the company's share of the local computer market. One-third of computers sold in Ukraine are Apples, compared with only 7 percent in the United States and 10 percent in Western Europe. While Western computer markets are saturated -- with almost a one-to-one ratio between computers and people -- in the former Soviet Union there is only one computer to every 50 people.Apple also plans to establish an "incubator" project to help 10 to 15 start-up Ukrainian software companies develop marketable software programs for the West, Minsky said.A software information center and a presidential advisory council consisting of Ukrainians and Westerners, will seek to gear Ukraine's software production for export. A development center in the Academy of Sciences will focus on marketing existing software for export."With the academy's high level of programmers and Apple's reputation for quality, we believe we can earn the trust necessary to get things going here," said Dr. Philip Andon, director of the Academy of Sciences' Institute of Software Systems.