The Ministry of Digital Development wants to suspend the centralized purchase of software for federal bodies

The Ministry of Digital Development of Russia proposed to suspend the centralized purchase of licenses for office and anti-virus software (software) for federal executive authorities (FEB) for the entire 2024. The corresponding draft government decree published on the portal of draft regulatory legal acts.

The document provides for changes in Cabinet Resolution No. 658 (launched in 2018) “On centralized procurement of office software, accounting software, and software in the field of information security.”

“A situation has arisen where the federal executive authority does not have the right to independently purchase software licenses for its own needs due to the requirements of Resolution No. 658, while the Ministry of Digital Development of Russia cannot make the purchase due to the absence of an indication of the source of funding in the regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation,” it says in the explanatory note.

It is noted that in order to implement the resolution, in 2019 the Ministry of Digital Development signed state contracts for the supply of software licenses for a total amount of 1.03 billion rubles, while in 2021 this result was excluded from the passport of the Digital Economy national program.

An employee of a large IT company in early October told Vedomosti reports that the State Duma apparatus has acquired 1,800 licenses for domestic analogues of the Windows operating system and an office software package for deputies and administrative employees of parliament Microsoft Office.

This was confirmed by the technical director of the license provider – integrator Step Logic Stanislav Darchinov. He clarified that the solutions were fully delivered to the customer in September. The exact purchase amount of the lower chamber, according to the government procurement portal, amounted to almost 52.5 million rubles. – of this amount about 23.1 million rubles. cost 1,800 Myoffice licenses and 29.3 million rubles. – licenses for Astra Linux.