According to the preliminary results for the full year 2006 released by RBC Information Systems (RTS, MICEX: RBCI) group's total revenue rises 90% to $207.8m due to strong underlying growth in the Media and IT segments and contributions from recent acquisitions. Consolidated EBITDA grew 84% to $54.5m and consolidated net income advanced 77% to $36.9m.

Commenting on the results RBC Chairman and CEO German Kaplun said, "This year RBC will keep aggressively investing in startup projects and acquisitions to build a large loyal audience in the area of mass market Internet and become a powerful force in the digital media in Russia, the CIS and Eastern Europe. These investments are expected to influence this year's financial results, but will benefit the company in the following years".

As reported earlier, RBC's Internet business is in the process of separation to an independent company Media Mir. This new company will spend $120m expanding into the general interest web segment in Russia, former USSR republics and Eastern Europe.

1st Vice Prime-Minister Sergey Ivanov claimed that by 2015 every town in the country would become technically capable of providing stationary and mobile telecommunication and Internet access for every family. Speaking at the extended session at Ministry of information technologies and communication last week he also pointed at the low amount of domestically produced microelectronics, telecommunication equipment and computers.

According to Aton's analyst Tatiana Kapustina, Russian media market will double in the next 3 years. Its 2006 turnover is estimated for about $6,6 bln. By that time the share of national advertisers' expends in GDP (0,65% in 2006) will double too and could be compared with today's figures in Poland ($95 per head) and other fast growing European markets. Currently there are only three public media companies in Russia. In 2006 CTC Media's capitalization increased by 72%, Rambler Media's by 70% and RBC's by 66%.

Esther Dyson from EDventure made a bet with Intuit's chairman Bill Campbell that in 2012 Wall Street Journal and New York Times would call Russia the world leading software developer. She put a $5,000 stake on that although if she had to pick only one country as a futurе world's IT major, it would be India. The problem with Russian IT is the lack of skilfull marketing and planning to add to programmers' talent, she explained.

After board's extraordinary general meeting Rambler Media Limited (LSE: RMG) announced the appointment of two new board members and two new executives. Vladimir Pravdivy and Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper nominated by Rambler's major shareholder PM Invest Company joined the board of directors while Alexander Rappaport and Vitaly Rudenko were resigned. Another resolution passed on the EGM was an appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as auditors of the company for the fiscal year 2006 annual audit.

Later that day the company also announced the appointment of Mark Opzoomer as chief executive officer and Arthur Akopyan as chief financial officer. According to official statement current CEO Irina Gofman will be stepping down from her day-to-day activities during a transitional period and will remain on the board of Rambler Media as director in a non-executive capacity.

Mark Opzoomer was the managing director and regional vice-president of Yahoo! Europe from July 2001 to December 2003 and provided Rambler Media's board with direct experience of Internet, communication and media industries since 2005.

The appointment of Arthur Akopyan, a former Synterra's manager, was rumored before the EGM when several Rambler's top managers went on vacation, as Webplanet reported.

The head of Euroset Group Eugeny Chichvarkin does not expect good sales of Apple's iPhone in Russia as he claimed in his recent interview to Kommersant. He reasoned of Apple IMC Russia passive strategy on the local market. "If they promote iPhone with the same effort as they did it for iPod, it will do no good", he said. He also pointed out that iPod's market share in Russia is seven times less than the global figure. On the other hand, Eugeny Chichvarkin is known for his sharp manner and his criticism is taken rather as a signal to his suppliers than Euroset's actual sales strategy. Besides most market analysts predict double sales of smartphones in Russia this year.

Microsoft presented its Windows and Microsoft Office production in Russia. Printing complex Sonopress in Yaroslavl has now been issuing discs with OEM-versions for few months. This step is positioned as an answer to Russia's need for licensed goods considering its second place among worlds biggest copyright violator. However local market experts say the move was forced by revision of the custom clearance procedure. Earlier the charge was calculated with the price of a storage device only, now the software is evaluated too.
Other global developers are following Microsoft. Adobe Systems announced it's going to make software downloads from the web available for Russia's and CIS consumers. Further it plans to partly move discs' production to Russia too.

Reports say that Moscow State University head Victor Sadovnichy issued a secret order for employees to delete every illegal software copy from university computers. The deadline is 1,April. MSU spokesman Evgenia Zaitseva told press that Sadovnichy was unaware of where this assumption has come from. Needless to say it would do no good to MSU administration to admit they were using illegal software. Obviously educational institutions are getting nervous about Microsoft's and others' copyright after Aleksandr Ponosov case. On the other hands Russian government just confessed they keep using illegal software on State Duma's computers.

Several Rambler Media Ltd (LSE: RMG) top managers went on vacation before the Extraordinary General Meeting on March, 15. The head of Ferra.ru Anton Dergobouzov was first to leave and Rambler's office manager says Dergobouzov doesn't work there any more. Webplanet's sources report he's already got a new job. The head of Rambler project department Dmitry Pleshakov (discorded with chief technology officer Denis Kalinin) supposed to have a 'vacation' too. He'll rest until April, Webplanet's sources add. Two more vacationists might be Rambler's search manager Vlad Shabanov and nginx-developer Igor Sysoev.

Same time, IT-daily reports that Arthur Akopyan from Synterra has been named as Rambler's new finance manager. Other sources say that Rambler's major shareholder PM Invest Company Ltd welcomed McKinsey's consultancy to fix its newly acquired asset. McKinsey's people are "well-known" in Russian Internet for their "help" to build ambitious eStart.ru portal for Independent Media in 2000 (later called "the most expensive collapse of the year").

As we reported before EGM was called to consider the appointment of two new directors Vladimir A Pravdivy and Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper proposed by PM. Shareholders will also be asked to approve the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as auditors of the company for the fiscal year 2006 annual audit.

First Vice Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev has shown much involvement answering the questions of web users during his online press-conference. To answer a funny question about 'hypertextual fidonet' the minister has registered himself in Fidonet and gave a detailed comment. He liked Fidonet for it is less commercialised than Internet. He also admitted that the lack of hyperlinks in their usual form is quite a problem, so the 'hypertextual fidonet' would be an important step.

Also he flatters web users speaking padonki slang. Actually he got into it last year during president Vladimir Putin's online conference. Foreign journalists mixed up his name with a popular questions about 'medved' (padonki's word for 'bear' and a famous meme). At his own conference Medvedev told the story of another meme, "Learn Albanian!" ('albanian' corresponds to Russian language in general or the padonki slang in particular), to answer the provocative question about whether Albanian will be studied at Russian schools.

First vice prime minister said nothing about how soon the brodband Internet would be available somewhere in Russia except Moscow and St.Peterbourg. Although he emphasized that the national project 'Internet at school' is not supposed to use dial-up anyhow. Dmitry Medvedev also spoke about proprietary software problem saying it's necessary to switch to open source both to fight piracy and to correspond to European trends.