All in all, the whole story behind this year was about expanding product lines and services that Miratech offers in the market of servicing financial and telecommunications sectors, and expansion of the company’s core businesses. The achievements are best attested by the figures: profits multiplied by three for the second quarter, despite the economic downturn, the company’s headcount was growing during the last year. This is a proud record that Miratech has due to the attitude and conduct of business, which allows each employee to work at full capacity, contributing to the overall success of the company, stressed in his speech Valeriy Kutsyy, Miratech CEO. Addressing the gathering, Dr. Mykola Royenko, President and Founder of Miratech, noted the importance of continuity in the company’s activities: “In late 80s the company pioneered ITO, the first contract was signed in 1989.”

Meanwhile, the celebration was not confined by merely ceremonial part. It was great for bright cultural entertainment, an abundance of exciting contests and competitions, and awarding contestants. The leitmotif of the event was the importance of continuity between generations, preserving the past in the present and sending it into the future. Thus, one of its major highlights was a memorial service award distributed on behalf of the company - the first edition of Miratech photo album, handcrafted by the staff themselves, embodying the memories of more than two decades of the company’s past. There is no doubt that such a gift will be a good welcoming word for newcomers who have just joined the ranks of Miratech, and it will help the old cohort feel the breath of history and liven the memories of “how it all began”!

Historically, activity or event shall be considered come about only if it is reported on the media, and the vital importance of the continuity of traditions in business is unlikely to prove. Therefore, the conclusion of the story about the company’s 21st Birthday wants to recite a quote taken from Anatoly Guzul, who, spotlighting the event on TV, said: “The status of experienced IT Company commits to strive for the highest standards. It is this strategy that Miratech successfully embodies for two decades.”

The conference was attended by bank officials of commercial and state banks, representing Ukraine, CIS and foreign countries, leading domestic and foreign suppliers of IT solutions, system integrators, and government employees.

The conference addressed issues that ranged from improved banking efficiency to the companies’ IT management in accordance with international best practices, and implementation of international standards for information security management systems. The format of the conference included both plenary sessions and subject-specific workshops to share experience and expertise of the banking industry.

Miratech was represented by Mykola Royenko, Miratech President, Valeriy Kutsyy, Miratech CEO, Natalia Perestyuk, Director of Business Development, Elena Zhylich, Director of Product Development, and Elena Yablonovska, Key Account Manager. There was a keynote “Outsourcing of IT services in Ukraine, Market Overview” held by Alexey Perekatov, Miratech Vice President, Corporate Marketing.

The conference included keynotes by Miratech’s momentous partners IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. The most interesting presentations were given by IBM and National Bank of Ukraine with a flashback analysis of building ICT infrastructure of the financial institutions and comprehensive outline on ways to improve the banks' performance through a more active deployment of ITO solutions and the transition to integrated solutions in the field of contact centers. At the conclusion there was a report on the benefits of sharing of IT infrastructure through virtualization technologies. Alexey Perekatov: “Why virtualization? Under a hard-budgeting of IT in their hardware constituent, the leading suppliers in this field whom we work with - Citrix and VMware - enjoy a strong reputation, and it is of daily occurrence.”

The topics of keynote speech by Alexey Perekatov were the need for innovative solutions in the banking sector of Ukraine and how management of banks’ IT resources by instrumentality of third parties can help banks perform better. Herewith Mr. Perekatov emphasized the practical aspects of Miratech's existing partnerships with such commercial banks of Ukraine as Marine Transport Bank, OTP Bank, Savings Bank of Russia and Swedbank.

Unlike previous years, this year's event took place against the background of the recession-weary 2009. As its impact on investment development has not yet been fully resolved, observers attribute to it both the fact that IT vendors were having a quantitative edge against bankers and a certain stance of inertia which was to feel in the plenary hall.

After rivetingly artistic T-shirt painting – the elders helped out juniors (also many thanks to each of the mums and dads who helped out either!) - kids were dressed up in the most colorful clothes and did activities related to the theme “Color”: to showcase exhilarating combination of science and fun, the mummery of young chemists and a green sticky toy show - to flaunt with later - were carried out in a really admirable manner, together kids made the foam and soda, and more. To top off a great day at Miratech, kids were awarded with diplomas and gifts.

The conference mooted the possibilities of integrated business solutions based on Avaya Aura platform and strategic directions of Avaya Intelligent Presence Server development. Avaya-Nortel officials let the attendees have a close look at the tools and some real-world applications related to Avaya Next Generation Context Center, which stems from Avaya-Nortel R&D’s joined effort. They described the main concepts and modules of NGCC, as well as the strategies of Avaya product lines linked with the release of this product. Much attention was paid to the benefits of using Avaya Voice Portal 5.1. Stressing the need for timely certification, Avaya-Nortel officials once again raised the details of Avaya Connect partnership program.

Addressed to IT professionals, the announcement of workforce management solution Avaya Workforce Optimization (scheduled roll out is in November 2010), as well as specifications and functionality of Avaya NGCC – that drew analysts’ attention.

The conference examined issues related to the implementation of broadband and wireless access, technical aspects of the provision of Triple Play and IP-TV services, as well as the experience of their use. Assessing the current trends in the market of Triple Play and IP-TV solutions, speakers noted the positive growth of the segment (keynotes from Molex, ZyXEL, DEPS and ITS). The peculiarities of demand dynamics in this area driven by the rapidly changing set of technologies used in the Internet were the focus of the keynote held by Vyacheslav Pushin (Alcatel-Lucent). In Mr. Pushin’s opinion, many innovations remain undeveloped or unclaimed for several reasons, the main of which is the advent of such technologies that allow one to address broadband related issues in a radically different manner.

The conference attendees were presented with a new issue of Networks and Business (¹ 2 (51), 2010), which informs about recent agreement between Swedbank and Miratech aimed to improve the bank’s IT operations, and the VI-th International Conference “Call Centers & CRM Kyiv 2010”, directly supported by Miratech.

Turning to the results of the conference, which targeted all players of national telecommunications industry, it should be noted that balance of power between system integrators and vendors has shifted in favor of the latter. According to observers, this is due to the instability of the market, which, to date, has not yet been overcome completely.

The thematic focus of the event was on the necessity of an integrated approach to the Informatization of enterprises and organizations under recession, on new solutions and their implementation. As the follow-up to the IDC Roadshow held earlier in twenty cities across Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and African region, the event brought together a large number of industry professionals: technical experts and IT managers, data storage and recovery experts, IT directors.

The keynotes were held by representatives of VMware (“From virtualization to the internal cloud - the practical steps of building new generation IT infrastructure”), Microsoft (“From virtual work-places to the private cloud infrastructure”), and some others. The leitmotif of the conference was the strategic importance for speedy implementation of best practices in managing IT infrastructures: virtualization and consolidation of IT infrastructure, IT outsourcing, service-oriented architecture as a way in which the constitution of infrastructures can be carried out.

This activity is part of the overall Avaya-Nortel action towards the promotion of new telephony solutions through its partnership network. It is also in line with the Avaya-Nortel joint partnership program entitled Avaya Connect, for which the corporation plans a Ukrainian roll out in April this year, as well as discussion of how it can benefit Avaya-Nortel domestic partners. Attended mainly by business partners of telecommunications giant, the workshop was successful with participation. Keynote lectures were aimed to increase awareness of Avaya-Nortel partners about the need to implement unified solutions suited to specific requirements of the end user. The report entitled “How to sell Avaya solutions for SMB-based IP Office” by Vladimir Yaroslavskiy (Avaya) has received appreciation for the most sensible and profound approach to this topic.

By Alexey Perekatov the technical aspects of Avaya-Nortel merge were said to be of the utmost importance: “The main concern of the alliance remains the transition to a joint software solution that will enable not only to retain the existing customer base, but to expand it through technologies, which differ today from supplier to supplier - with a view to migrate to a fully unified product in the future. As for the Avaya-Nortel partnership network, I believe that there is huge potential in this area which still remains unfolded. How those practical benefits will come out, time will tell."