Ministry of Labor and Rostelecom differ in assessing the number of officials who will receive smartphones on the domestic OS Sailfish

Last May, at Habré, it was reported that federal officials would work with mobile devices based on Sailfish OS. In early 2018, a project was prepared to provide representatives of the Russian authorities with new devices, which were submitted to the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media for consideration.

The project proposed to use smartphones Inoi R7, which operate on the basis of OS Sailfish. As far as one can understand, the project continues to live, but its implementation is not going too fast. It has now become known that the Ministry of Labor and Rostelecom differently estimate the number of officials who need new smartphones.

Rostelecom, for example, believes that 1.4 million people use communication services that include the use of a smartphone on Sailfish. The Ministry of Labor, in turn, offers to provide 385,000 employees with smartphones. But according to Rostelecom, in this case the costs for each employee will rise sharply.

The state operator has developed two models for the provision of mobile services based on Sailfish, as reported by Kommersant. The first model is based on the offer of an integrated service, which includes the use of a smartphone. This is, in fact, rent, tariff - 16.6 thousand rubles per person per year. Most likely, the full transition of federal employees to the domestic OS will take place by the end of 2021. In 2019, the number of officials with new phones will grow to 300 thousand, in 2020 to 800, by the end of 2021, to 1.4 million people.

Financing of such a large-scale program will cost 1.3 billion rubles only in 2019. In 2020 it will need 12.3 billion, in 2021 - 23.4 billion.

The Ministry of Labor proposes its own plan, according to which only federal officials with traveling orders should become owners of new devices. These are assistants and secretaries of the management team, top officers, top commanders, etc. 385 thousand people satisfy these criteria.

Rostelecom believes that the approach proposed by the Ministry of Labor will lead to “preserving workers' communications outside a secure circuit using personal communications”. The state operator believes that if only 385 thousand people are supplied with smartphones, then the subscription model itself will become economically inefficient for Rostelecom because of the high costs of operating system development.

For this reason, Rostelecom offers the second distribution option for Sailfish-based devices. This is a one-time purchase of a phone with pre-installed software for 49.6 thousand rubles, after which the buyer will pay to support the OS 1.5 thousand rubles a year. For the purchase of devices, the country will need 19.1 billion rubles. per year, to support the OS 578 million rubles. in year. If the second model is chosen, then government agencies will have to procure cellular services themselves, resolving device maintenance issues.

According to experts, the first version looks more realistic, since it is a standard model with a smartphone on a subscription. The second model looks strange, since the price is high, and the scheme for obtaining equipment is strange. “It turns out that you either take 1.5 million smartphones with installments for three years, or take 385 thousand smartphones, but immediately pay 49.8 thousand rubles. It turns out that in three years, I’ll have to buy this smartphone again, ”said Sergey Polovnikov, head of the Content Review agency.

Other experts agree with him who also rate the first option as more realistic. The figure of 49.6 thousand rubles, they consider overpriced.

Currently, Sailfish OS is considered the only Russian mobile OS. In accordance with the import substitution implementation plan, this year the transition of officials and employees of a number of state-owned companies to the use of smartphones from the Russian OS starts.

About three years ago, the development of the Sailfish Mobile OS RUS took the company OMP. Sailfish mobile operating platform is the only one that is included in the Russian registry of domestic software. Smartphones based on this OS were first made available to officials in 2017, then about 15,000 devices went to the staff of the Post of Russia. And at the same time, the Inoi R7 smartphone was presented to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.