Russian analogue of Microsoft Office conquers Africa

The Russian analogue of Microsoft Office 365, MyOffice, is conquering Africa: the company has concluded software licensing deals with the governments of Cameroon, Burundi and Congo and plans to enter 23 more African countries, writes Bloomberg.

MyOffice is much cheaper than the package of the American tech giant, writes Bloomberg. And most importantly, the Russian software company successfully plays on the fears of officials to store data on servers located outside their own borders.

Cameroon, for example, is piloting 500 free MyOffice licenses for schoolchildren and is considering installing the software in other government agencies. The country’s education minister, Laurent Etundi, said the government chose Russia’s MyOffice because it did not require sending data to corporate servers abroad. “This way, we can be sure that state secrets will be protected from hackers or any third parties,” a Cameroonian official explained.

Entering the African market could be crucial for software companies. As Bloomberg explains, millions of Africans are only now connecting to the internet for the first time. And while the region’s major economies (South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt) are already on the radar of major US tech companies, there are still opportunities for alternative suppliers in smaller African countries.

• The number of smartphone internet connections in sub-Saharan Africa will nearly double to 678 million by the end of 2025, according to GSMA, the wireless industry trade body. MyOffice founder and CEO Dmitry Komissarov says sales in Africa could account for 15% of MyOffice's total revenue.

• The expansion of Russian software into Africa is supported by the presidential administration. Years of declining oil revenues and conflicts with Western countries have prompted Putin to look for other ways to expand trade, for example with Africa. Some of MyOffice's deals in this market are the result of a summit held by Russian authorities in Sochi (the Russia-Africa Economic Forum took place in October 2019).

• MyOffice supports domestic cryptography. The developer of the package is New Cloud Technologies (NOT), and the package's buyers include the Russian National Guard and the Pension Fund of Russia.
• For a long time, the main owner of NOT was the former vice-president of Rostelecom, Andrey Cheglakov, but this year Kaspersky Lab increased its share to 47%.

• One of the minority shareholders was named as the former Rosneft CEO Thomas Hendel. Forbes wrote that Hendel was in charge of the oil company's sausage shop, which was infamous in the Ulyukaev case. Previously, the long-time independent director of Rosneft, executive director of the Nord Stream 2 AG gas pipeline operator Nord Stream 2 AG, Matthias Warnig also had a small stake in the company.

• There have been many complaints about MyOffice software, even from domestic government customers. At the end of 2018, the Moscow Department of Information Technology complained that the MyOffice Mail application (part of the MyOffice package) contained 33 defects, which is why the government could not switch to it.