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November 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 18
Abbyy and Softline invest in document software technologies
Abbyy, a Moscow-headquartered global provider of content intelligence solutions and services, has acquired ATAPY Software, as reported by online publication Rusbase. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Based in Novosibirsk, Siberia, ATAPY Software provides a variety of custom software development services in the fields of document workflow, docu- ment imaging, data capture, optical character recognition (OCR), and computer linguistics.
The two companies have been partners since ATAPY Software’s early days in 2001, with the Siberian company receiving the status of Abbyy software Bronze Integrator. Under plans, its full integration to Abbyy is to be completed in early 2019.
In a separate move last week, Softline Ventures and Moscow Seed Fund announced a 12 million ruble investment (a little less than $200,000 at the current exchange rate) in Soica, a publisher of document digitization solutions.
Outsourcing industry in Bulgaria to rise to 7.9% of GDP by 2021
The size of the outsourcing industry in Bulgaria will nearly double by 2021, contributing 7.9% of GDP by 2021 with a revenue of BGN4bn (¤2.01bn), a report from the Bulgarian Outsourcing Associa- tion showed.
The industry is already expanding significantly and in 2017 it contributed 4.8% to GDP, up from 4.2% in 2016.
“The results of the outsourcing industry for 2017 are better than expected with the operating in- come increasing by 18.2% instead of the 13.5% forecasted in the previous report,” the association said in a press release.
It added that the profile of the outsourcing services is changing and currently just 16% of the outsourc- ing companies operating in Bulgaria are focused on call centres, while the majority comprise the so- called shared services, business processes in the area of human resources and finance.
There is increasing interest in IT services, mainly software development, support and system inte- gration.
More than 67,300 people worked in the outsourc- ing sector in Bulgaria as of end-2017 and their number is seen rising to 79,000 employees.
52% of the outsourcing companies are owned by Bulgarians.
OSCE raises concern over threat to Albanian online portals
The OSCE expressed concerns on October 18 re- garding the new registration system and the threat of potential closure of online portals in Albania.
This came after Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama urged the owners of all web portals to reg- ister them as business subjects at the National Business Center as part of the planned anti-def- amation law package. However many NGOs and portal owners consider that the move is aimed at imposing government control over online media.
The new registration system relates to 44 web- sites in Albania. On October 15, Albania's Elec- tronic and Postal Communications Authority (AKEP) published a list of media websites required to register with the National Business Centre and to acquire their tax number within 72 hours, which they must then publish online. Failure to comply would result in the websites being closed down.
“States should not impose mandatory registration to online media as a precondition for their work which can have a very negative effect on media freedom,” the OSCE representative on freedom of the media,