“Aurora” is heading for Kaliningrad – Newspaper Kommersant No. 66 (7511) dated 04/17/2023

The Russian manufacturer and distributor of electronics F+ tech has presented a smartphone and tablet on the Aurora OS, which it wants to enter into the register of domestic products to receive state benefits. The equipment will be produced in Kaliningrad, where it is planned to install the OS. Previously, the system was ported by a subsidiary of its developer Rostelecom, but due to limited resources, manufacturers expected OS adaptation up to six months. But experts doubt that the new scheme will improve the prospects for F + tech devices: so far, the demand for equipment at Aurora has been low.

F + tech (the parent structure of the F + tech-Marvel group) has developed a mobile workplace for the corporate and public sector on the Aurora OS, Kommersant was told in the company. We are talking about the Life Tab Plus tablet and the R570 smartphone, they will be preinstalled with Kaspersky Lab antivirus and the MyOffice package. The company wants to declare these solutions as a software and hardware complex (HSS) and enter the register of the Ministry of Digital Development: “In the future, the software composition of the HSS will be scaled depending on the needs of the customer to replace solutions from foreign manufacturers.”

The Ministry of Digital Transformation “Kommersant” specified that F + tech equipment could be included in the register if it meets the requirements for PAK. The Ministry of Industry and Trade did not answer “Kommersant”. According to Nikolai Komlev, head of the Russian Chamber of Commerce Council for the development of the digital economy, before submitting it to the register of the Ministry of Digital Development as a PAK F + tech, you will have to prove that this version of the Aurora OS cannot work on another device: “The definition of the PAK states that equipment is considered to be such whose software and hardware cannot function without each other.” At the same time, Mr. Komlev believes that at the first stage of the formation of the PAK register, the Ministry of Digital Transformation “can accept most applications, and after filling it, begin to gradually tighten the requirements.”

F+ tech clarified that the devices will be assembled at contract facilities in Kaliningrad, the Avrora OS is planned to be installed at the plant: “Current capacities allow F+ tech to supply more than 500,000 PACs annually.”

The source of Kommersant in the electronics market explains the importance of just such an organization by the fact that due to the lack of the Open Mobile System company (OMP, develops the Aurora OS, belongs to Rostelecom), there are enough resources, equipment and employees of Aurora it turns out to be adapted to only a few devices a year: “Part of the work on porting the OS was transferred to manufacturers, but since the final stage is done by the OMP, the process is slow and new devices on the Aurora OS do not appear en masse.” Another interlocutor of Kommersant in the electronics market noted that porting the Aurora OS usually took about six months, and any hardware changes require revision of the OS, which again forces developers to submit devices for testing to OMP.

Previously, the Aurora OS developed in a model similar to Apple, in which the operating system was ported and adapted for each manufactured device by the OS developer, confirmed Kirill Menshov, Senior Vice President for IT at PJSC Rostelecom. According to him, due to the expansion of the number of manufacturers, together with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, it was decided that manufacturers will deal with OS porting and its support on their own.

At the same time, one of Kommersant’s sources emphasizes that despite the new scheme, “the F + tech mobile workplace does not differ much from existing gadgets on the Aurora OS” (they are also being developed by Aquarius, Baiterg, Research Institute Scale, etc.). The prospects for such devices are doubtful, Kommersant’s interlocutor is sure, in any case, in recent years, “a significant breakthrough in the decisions at Aurora has not been observed, despite all the seemingly conducive circumstances.”

Timofey Kornev