The founder of the office suite application developer company “My Office,” Dmitry Komissarov, has established a company to develop BIOS systems for computers manufactured in Russia. The company, called “Bios-Protection,” was registered in March 2024 with Komissarov being the sole owner and CEO.
Investment and Development Plans
The project has attracted investment to the tune of 30 million rubles so far, predicted to increase to 80 million rubles by year-end. The company currently consists of a team of 12, projected to expand to 25 eventually. Currently, the product developed by the company is under testing with one of the hardware solution manufacturers. The product is expected to become available to other market participants by the fall of this year, according to Komissarov.
David Martirosyan, CEO of the Basis consortium, says, “The creation of a domestic BIOS will allow replacing another class of system software with a completely Russian solution, primarily those BIOS developed by American companies American Megatrends, Award, Phoenix.”
About BIOS and Domestic Needs
Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) software is used to test hardware components of a device at startup and subsequent load-up of the operating system. In the 2000s, Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) began to replace BIOS, but the term BIOS continues to be used as a general name for systems responsible for the initial boot stage of devices.
In March 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree, according to which, from January 1, 2025, critical information infrastructure assets, owned by operators such as communication operators, government agencies, transport infrastructure operators, etc., must be fully switched to the use of domestic software. The specific list of objects subject to this decree is to be approved by the Russian government.
However, as Dmitry Komissarov points out, “There are no adequate assessments of the Russian BIOS-developer market now. I think the situation will be similar to Russian Linux-based operating systems: there are over 40 in the register of domestic software, but there are only four real market players.”
Competition and Market Difficulties
Currently, “Numatech,” RDW, among others, are also engaged in the development of BIOS in Russia. Pavel Smolensky, CEO of “Numatech”, noted that entering this market comes with two difficulties. The first is obtaining closed documentation on the device of chipsets and processors, as well as documentation for BIOS setup and programming, reference source codes from chip manufacturers (Intel and AMD). Secondly, he states that there is a shortage of qualified personnel.
