Linux put on the shelf – Kommersant

The government may oblige retailers to pre-install the Russian operating system (OS) on all laptops and personal computers (PCs) that are shipped to the Russian Federation, the relevant document is being prepared by the Ministry of Digital Development. OS developers believe that this will help to avoid security problems with Windows devices supplied via parallel import that do not receive updates. According to retailers, despite the growth in sales of laptops and non-OS PCs, the share of Windows in the Russian market remains at the level of last year.

The interlocutor of Kommersant in the government said that the Ministry of Digital Development is developing a regulation under which the pre-installation of the Russian operating system on all laptops and personal computers imported into the country will become mandatory. “The Russian OS should become additional. The document can be submitted to the government this quarter,” he said. Another source close to the Cabinet added that since last year, the possibility of imposing the obligation to pre-install domestic operating systems on retailers has been discussed. The Ministry of Digital Development did not answer “Kommersant”.

According to government decree No. 1867 of 2020, pre-installation of Russian programs is the responsibility of the manufacturer. “Now any seller of equipment in Russia can quite legally withdraw from the pre-installation, declaring that he does not have such powers,” says Kirill Nikitin, head of the Vegas Lex law firm. According to him, if the regulation changes, the retailer will be obliged to pre-install Russian software under the threat of withdrawing the goods.

In mid-2022, against the backdrop of an increase in the supply of foreign laptops without an operating system to the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Digital Development said that it was considering the option of making pre-installation of the domestic OS on these devices mandatory (see Kommersant dated July 6). In November, the ministry conducted a business survey to select “targeted” domestic operating systems. Based on the results of the survey, three systems were identified – Astra Linux OS (Astra Group of Companies), Alt OS (Basalt SPO) and Red OS (Red Soft), all of which are based on Linux (see “ Kommersant, November 1).

The initiative on mandatory pre-installation of the Russian OS on laptops and PCs will help to avoid illegal deliveries of Microsoft’s Windows OS, which, among other things, does not receive security updates, Alexey Smirnov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Basalt SPO, believes.

According to Holodilnik.ru, in the first quarter of 2023, the share of laptops without an operating system in monetary terms amounted to 21.2% of sales (8.3% a year earlier). At the same time, the share of Windows OS remained practically unchanged, amounting to 55.6%. The share of DOS in the first quarter almost halved, to 7.6% of the market, the share of Mac OS (Apple) decreased year-on-year by 4 percentage points (p.p.), to 12%. According to the retailer, in the first quarter, laptops were sold for 45.5 billion rubles. In the desktop PC segment, the share of non-OS devices in terms of money increased by 17 p.p. to 47.7% over the year. The share of Windows decreased by 15 percentage points to 32%, while the share of DOS increased by 5 percentage points to 16.2% of the market. In total, PCs were sold for 11.7 billion rubles.

The representative of RATEK (combines M.Video-Eldorado, DNS, Citylink, etc.) Anton Guskov said that the introduction of a mandatory pre-installation of Russian OS on the supplied devices will negatively affect the market. “If they oblige to pre-install the Russian OS instead of the one already installed by the manufacturer, the result will be a rise in the cost of products. Installing two operating systems at the same time is not feasible on all devices,” he says. “If retailers are required to pre-install the Russian OS, then the labor costs of specialists in stores will be included in the final cost of the equipment,” agrees a Kommersant source in a large foreign manufacturer. According to him, at the same time, none of the leading vendors will be able to pre-install the Russian OS in production, and therefore the volume of electronics of these brands may be reduced.

Timofey Kornev, Yulia Silence