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Romania drawing in foreign software investors

Romania's entry into the European Union in January 2007 has catalysed interest in the country's software industry. In the past 18 months, a spate of acquisitions has highlighted Romania's appeal as an Eastern European 'near-shoring' hub, my-esm on line publication reports.

Romania is attractive for a variety of reasons, including an ample supply of graduates from a university system strong in mathematics and physics; relatively low costs; low turnover rates; a time zone and distance favourable to European companies; and an eager, multilingual work force. Wirtek A/S, a software outsourcing firm based in Aalborg, Denmark, needed an offshore operation and first looked at India. But management instead decided to acquire a software company working in telecommunications: CodeWizards, based in the central city of Cluj-Napoca. 'The most important issue was that many Asian countries have very high turnover of employees - 23 to 25 percent annually,' says Michael Aaen, Wirtek's managing director. 'We found that in Romania, the employees are more loyal.' Wirtek plans to increase its Romanian staff to 200 from 40 in the next three years, Aaen adds. Just before Romania entered the EU, London-based Misys Banking Systems Ltd., a developer of financial risk-management and trading software, acquired SC Fino Capital, a Bucharest-based financial-software developer that had been working with Mysis for several years. 'EU entry removes an element of doubt,' says Tim Goodhind, Mysis' business development director. 'You believe the risks associated with business processes and regulations, and with currency, are mitigated.' The strength of Romania's university-level mathematics programmes was a key driver for Mysis, Goodhind says. The Romanian unit now has 80 employees, and management plans to grow that number 25 percent annually. The team is already doing some core product development. Among other companies having made recent acquisitions in Romania, Adobe Systems Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.) purchased InterAKT, a developer of extensions for Adobe's core products; Adecco Group (Glattbrugg, Switzerland) bought IP Devel, a software outsourcing firm; and Wind River Systems Inc. (Alameda, Calif.) acquired SC Comsys SRL, an embedded-software professional-services organization based in Romania. 'All of those businesses are attracted by the skilled people coming out of the universities,' says Goodhind. Sursa: http://www.rompress.ro

Tags: software romania based

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