“Astra” blooms in China – Newspaper Kommersant No. 177 (7378) of 09/26/2022

Chinese laptop manufacturer Hiper has agreed to pre-install the Russian operating system (OS) Astra Linux on its devices for the retail market. Sales of laptops will begin in the Citilink network in October. In the future, the developer of the system, Astra Group of Companies, hopes to expand the number of partners among manufacturers and retailers. But experts doubt that there will be a noticeable demand for such laptops.

The domestic developer of the Astra Linux operating system, Astra Group of Companies, has agreed to pre-install the OS on Chinese Hiper laptops, a representative of the Group of Companies said. According to him, the Chinese vendor will release laptops with Astra Linux only for the Russian market, they will be sold in the Citilink network. Astra hopes to expand the range of device vendors on the Russian platform, as well as increase the number of retail chains where they can be purchased.

The first batch of laptops will appear in early October. In the line of Hiper Workbook laptops presented on the domestic OS, there will be six models on Intel Core processors (i3, i5, i7, i11) or AMD Ryzen 5 with 8 or 16 GB of RAM and 256 and 512 GB SSD storage, laptops will be presented in the middle price segment (from 35 thousand rubles).

Hiper specified that in the first batch there will be 2.2 thousand devices, Astra Linux was installed on the production cycle in Shenzhen, and “in the future, the batches may increase.” These laptops will not be supplied to the public sector, the company added, other configurations are intended for it. Hiper clarified that they themselves do not participate in state tenders, but “partner suppliers have the right to use equipment for the needs of government agencies.”

Citilink and M.Video-Eldorado are already selling boxed versions and activation codes for another domestic operating system, Red OS (see Kommersant dated August 31). System developers said they expect to become leaders in the consumer segment by mid-2023, but experts doubted that there would be demand for their solutions due to OS compatibility problems with popular programs and external devices. The initiative of the Ministry of Digital Development can solve the problem: they plan to introduce a condition for inclusion of software products in the register of domestic software that developers must adapt products for Linux systems (see Kommersant of September 20). At the Kazan Digital Week forum on September 22, Maksut Shadayev, head of the Ministry of Digital Development, confirmed that this criterion would be introduced in 2024.

According to Aleksey Dashkevich, head of the Citilink computer and laptop procurement group, over the past six months there has been a “trend” in the network for the purchase of domestic software: “Both retail customers and corporate clients have begun to choose Russian software more often.” According to Kommersant’s interlocutor in the IT market, a buyer can pay attention to a device with a pre-installed domestic OS only if the price is attractive: “But then the user can change the OS to a pirated, but familiar Windows. For the end user, Linux is a completely incomprehensible environment.”

Another interlocutor of Kommersant in the IT development segment believes that the Astra Linux OS “is poorly adapted to the end user in terms of the number of applications, so the demand for such equipment will depend on the user’s experience or his goals.” Oleg Aksenov, Director of the Lanit-Integration IT Solutions Center (part of the Lanit group), is sure that OSes based on Linux are quite suitable for installation on user devices: OS, the number of devices with operating systems like Linux in Russia will increase.” According to the expert, this is facilitated by the adaptation of user habits and the expansion of the range of compatible software products.

Timofey Kornev