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File-Sharing Site EX.UA Has Been Shut Down by Ukrainian PoliceThe Ukrainian most popular file-sharing site Ex.ua has been shut down by Ukrainian police with immediate effect.
The police confiscated 200 servers on which more than 6,000 terabytes of data was stored. The servers were located in 5 data centers in Kyiv. The Ex.ua raids follow less than two weeks after US authorities ordered the shutdown of another file-hosting service, MegaUpload.
Because the site was widely used to share copyrighted files, several international companies including Microsoft, Graphisoft and Adobe filed complaints against the service. After a six month criminal investigation, this resulted in the shutdown of Ex.ua.
Sixteen employees were taken in for questioning. At the time of writing it is unclear how many arrests have been made, if any. The authorities did confirm that the site was run by a Latvian citizen.
If found guilty, the operators of the site face up to five years in prison.
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Rumor: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Canceled, GSC Game World ClosedAn ugly rumor coming out of Ukraine claims that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is canceled and developer GSC Game World has been closed down.
This is seriously disappointing news if it turns out to be true. According to a Google translation of Ukrainian News, GSC Game World founder and CEO Sergei Grigorovich has decided to shut down the company. What led to the decision isn't clear, although it appears that someone - perhaps Grigorovich, perhaps employees at the studio - weren't happy with the progress being made on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. The closure of the studio, of course, means that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is dead in the water.
And sadly, it looks like it is true: GSC initially denied the report via Twitter, but that tweet was quickly deleted and then followed by another from GSC Director Dmitri Bourkovski, who wrote, "not PR. GSC closed." In response to inquiries from Rock, Paper, Shotgun, GSC said only, "Sorry, no comments at this point," which is never a good sign.
On the other hand, this wouldn't be the first time that an eastern European game company pulled a bizarre "we're going out of business!" stunt to drum up publicity. It's a faint hope - a very, very faint hope - but given how much I've been looking forward to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, I'm going to cling to it.
UPDATE: It turns out that Dmitri Bourkovski, who earlier "confirmed" the closure of GSC on Twitter, doesn't actually work for GSC Game World at all; his Linkedin profile lists him as the "Head of Publishing, Games Division" at Mail.ru. He also told Beefjack that he has "no connection" with the project and was only tweeting about what he'd heard. An interesting twist! We're waiting for an official response to our inquiries from GSC and will update again when we hear more.
UPDATE 2: Sergey Galyonkin, marketing director at 1C Multimedia [1C Company published the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games in some regions] has blogged about the closure of GSC, which you may or may not take as confirmation as you see fit. "GSC is closed, a fact confirmed by all. The team is almost completely dissolved, the state has only a few people," he wrote, obviously Google translated.
Galyonkin said a deal to bring the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series to consoles fell through and the projected sales for a PC-exclusive post-apocalyptic shooter based in eastern Europe weren't enough to justify the expense of developing the game. There were also apparently concerns, as stated earlier, about the current state of the game's development and some claims that GSC Game World chief Grigorovich is just "stupidly tired."
We're still awaiting official word from GSC but at this point, it sounds very much like that's that.
(c) Escapist
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Russian Netwell opens representative office in KyivRussian telecommunications equipment and technology distributor Netwell opens representative office in Kyiv. Ukraine is the first country in which Netwell will have its international office. The main task of Kyiv office will be extending the sales network in Ukraine, informed Paudis.
Deputy general director Yevgeniy Chepusov commented: “Being a niche distributor we are able to provide our partners with access to unique products and solutions allowing them to make market in them and create demand, resulting in maximum profitability to them. Without any doubt, together we would be able to reach important goals.”
Despite the fact that Netwell has been dealing with many partners in CIS for a long time, the opening of Kyiv representative office created the most comfortable conditions for further mutual cooperation. Now there is a permanent warehouse facility in Ukraine which would help to significantly decrease delivery times. Specialists of Ukrainian office will conduct technical expertise of the projects in Ukraine and support their partners and customers at every stage of the projects implementation.
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Several satellite TV platforms are planning to start in Ukraine in 2011Ukraine is to experience a significant increase of new TV services, with up to two DTH (direct-to-home) platforms and a DTT (digital terrestrial television) operation expected to start this automn.
On August 5 General Satellite (Russia) announced that it is considering to enter Ukrainian market. They are planning to expand several DTH (direct-to-home) projects around the world, and they see Ukraine as a good place to start from.
It is said that General Satellite plans to distribute 55 channels in Ukraine, of which 28 will be local services. Most probably they would be transmitted using the localised version of Tricolor TV platform, a successful service from neighboring Russia.
It was reported last week that the Istil Group, which was previously behind the failed Poverkhost Plus operation, now plans to launch a DTH platform named XTRA. It is rumored that the platform will use Irdeto conditional access technology, which allows to protect the content delivery from piracy. It is also mentioned that the XTRA platform could go live as soon as this week.
Besides, Zeonbud, an operator of four of Ukraine’s six multiplexes (channels), plans to launch its DTT service this September.
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AVentures Capital invest $1 mln. in Ukrainian-Based Divan.TVAVentures Capital, along with several other private investors, are the first to invest into Divan.TV. Divan.TV is a new concept in the television experience. Divan will be targeting the Central Eastern European area. Adventures Capital has stated that their investment, at this time, has not exceeded $1 million, informed Paudis.
Divan TV (www.divan.tv)
Divan.TV was established in 2009 and has quickly developed into a new platform that could change the way everyone experiences television. With the Divan box attached to the television, consumers can interact with their television through several multi-media methods.
Divan is targeting the Ukraine and Russia for its initial release in Fall 2011. Divan believes it will be in 1 million households by 2014.
AVentures Capital (www.aventures.com)
AVentures Capital was founded in 1994 by Andrey Kolodyuk, and has realized over $1 billion in assets through 30 separate projects. Aventures Capital targets innovative IT start up ventures and is expanding its interests into the telecommunications and commercial property industries.
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Ukraine attracted EUR 96 mln investments from private equity funds in 2010According to a report by the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA) Ukraine attracted EUR 96 mln investments from private equity funds.
Investment activity in 2010 was highly concentrated in six countries: Poland (EUR 657 mln), the Czech Republic (EUR 193 mln), Romania (EUR 119 mln), Ukraine (EUR 96 mln), Bulgaria (EUR 82 mln) and Hungary (EUR 65 mln). Together, they accounted for 94% of the total CEE private equity investment value in 2010 (EUR 1.29 bn) and 68% of the total number of companies financed.
Private equity and venture capital funds focused on the Central and Eastern Europe attracted EUR 645 mln of new funds raised for investments into the companies in the region during 2010.
(c) EVCA
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Police Raid Russia’s Largest Porn BitTorrent SiteIn 2010, Russian authorities seized the domain of the country’s biggest BitTorrent tracker, Torrents.ru, in copyright related action. Now, just over a year later, police have swooped on its sister site, Pornolab – Russia’s biggest porn tracker – and seized its servers. With the recent demise of two other huge adult trackers, it’s possible that Pornolab was the largest adult torrent site in the world.
For many years, when BitTorrent sites around Western Europe and the United States suffered legal pressure and were forced to look for new homes, fingers have pointed to the east. Russia is not exactly considered a market leader when it comes to copyright-related enforcement and neither is its western neighbor, Ukraine.
In February 2010, however, an event occurred which rocked the boat. Citing copyright concerns, authorities seized the domain name of Torrents.ru, the country’s biggest tracker with millions of members.
The site continues today under a new domain, Rutracker.org, with its troubles seemingly behind it. The same cannot be said for its sister operation, the adult torrent site Pornolab.net.
Despite being Russia’s 93rd most popular site, Pornolab chose to operate out of a datacenter in Ukraine (MHOST). The authorities there say it was a huge operation, serving 2 million registered users. With the recent demise of Empornium and PureTNA, this may mean it was the biggest porn tracker in the world. In the last 24 hours, however, all that came to an end.
According to police in the capital, Kiev, yesterday their officers swooped on the site’s datacenter and seized its servers. Unusually for a case of this type, the complaints that led to this action were not related to copyright infringement but to the unlawful distribution of pornography.
The police are citing contraventions of Part 2 of Article 301 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine which covers crimes against children using the Internet – in this case the importation, production, sale and distribution of pornographic material without age restriction.
In addition to attempting to bring the operators of the site to justice, the police say that they will also try to identify Ukrainian users of the site. Due to the nature of BitTorrent – downloaders automatically upload too – they too are being accused of the unlawful distribution of restricted material.
In the past, Article 301 has been used by the government to shut down various publications deemed to be offensive, including literature aimed at the gay community. Punishments can extend from large fines to 5 years in prison.
Ukraine is also home to Demonoid, one of the world’s largest BitTorrent trackers. Unlike Pornolab, Demonoid expressly forbids the tracking of any adult-related content. It also goes one step further, probably to ensure it stays the correct side of the Ukrainian authorities, by banning all local traffic. Pornolab did not and according to estimates, up to 700,000 of its members called Ukraine home.
This is not the first time Ukrainian police have shut down a an adult themed torrent site. In May 2010, xsweet.net.ua was targeted for the same reasons and its 35-year-old operator arrested.
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DataArt Opens New European Headquarters in KyivDataArt, a US custom software development firm that builds advanced solutions for select industries, announced the opening of a new development center in Kyiv bringing the total number of employees to more than 600 throughout its offices in North America and Eastern Europe. DataArt’s fifth R&D center, and its third in Ukraine, will become the company’s new European Headquarters.
Kyiv, the largest city in Ukraine and one of the oldest in Eastern Europe, is an important industrial, scientific, educational and cultural center. Its well-developed high-tech sector, top universities and modern infrastructure have long attracted European and U.S. businesses. In addition to its excellent academic and IT landscape, DataArt selected Kyiv due to its cultural affinity with existing DataArt locations and easy access with direct flights from all major U.S. and European cities.
“We’ve had a tremendously successful year making expansion a necessity to our immediate and future growth strategies,” said Michael Zaitsev, Co-Founder and Chairman of DataArt. “Opening in Kyiv is a logical step as it allows us to hire top talent for project management in the capital, while continuing gradual expansion into other Ukrainian cities, where the IT market is not as competitive, in the future.” The DataArt Kyiv office will become the company’s European headquarters, strategically located in the city center and occupying two floors of a business center with its own state of the art conference facility. Currently with two dozen highly trained project managers and computer engineers, the office focuses on project management of mission critical systems and is headed by George Kremenetsky, a PhD in Computer Science and a former CTO of DMS Consulting.
“DataArt again made the right move at the right time,” said George Kremenetsky. “The company is already well-known in Ukraine, and Kyiv is a recognized IT capital. The fact that DataArt is consistently voted one of the best companies to work for sends a solid message to our clients that our productivity tops competition.” DataArt has an excellent track record in the region. It was voted a Top Ten Employer in Russia by HR Brand 2010, the best employer in Kharkiv by a leading local business daily, and a top five Ukrainian company to work for by Ukrainian Association of Developers.
DataArt first entered Ukraine in 2007, opening two R&D centers in the cities of Kharkiv and Kherson, currently employing half of the company’s engineers. DataArt’s Russian offices are in St. Petersburg and Voronezh.
About DataArt: DataArt is a custom software development firm that builds advanced solutions for the financial services, healthcare, hospitality and other industries. Combining domain knowledge with offshore cost advantages and resource flexibility, DataArt develops industry-defining applications, helping clients optimize time-to-market and minimize software development risks in mission-critical systems. With an unrivaled talent pool of highly skilled software engineers in New York, London, Russia and Ukraine, DataArt provides the technical skill, accountability and industry knowledge needed to deliver custom applications on time and on budget.
DataArt clients include Standard & Poor’s, Harmonic Fund Services, Ogilvy, artnet, Panasonic, Cancer Research, Charles River Laboratories, Betfair, Misys, leading asset management firms and three of the top ten investment banks.
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Viettel to invest USD 600m in UkraineVietnamese telecommunications company Viettel is expected to invest about U.S. $600 million in broadband development in Ukraine, Vladislav Kaskiv, director of Ukraine’s State Agency for Investments and Investment Project Management, told reporters on March 26.
The agency signed a memorandum with Viettel, under which the operator is expected to build a broadband network in Ukraine, Kaskiv said, adding that the project is expected to be implemented within five years.
Under the project, the agency plans to ensure the availability of computers at schools in Ukrainian rural areas and the availability of netbooks for all Ukrainian school students, Kaskiv said.
Viettel is Vietnam’s largest telecommunications operator with a total of more than 50 million subscribers.
(c) Prime-TASS
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Epic move: Austrian sole bidder for Ukrtelecom; no SCM bid; MTS waits in wings?The chairman of Ukraine’s State Property Fund (SPF), Alexander Ryabchenko, has announced that only one bid has been received for a 92.79% stake in government-owned incumbent telco Ukrtelecom, from Epic Services Ukraine (Esu), a subsidiary of Austrian investment fund Epic. As reported by local newspaper Delo.ua, the applicant has already made a tender guarantee of UAH1.05 billion (USD133 million) in advance of a privatisation auction set for 28 December, with a minimum bid price of UAH10.5 billion. Prior to the announcement it had been widely thought that a bid would come from domestic conglomerate SCM, owner of the country’s largest alternative fixed line provider Vega and part-owner of local cellco Astelit, but the Ukrainian group has not yet come forward, whilst the previous favourite for the stake, Russia’s MTS, part of the Sistema group, has declined to bid because it considers the return on investment will be too low. An MTS spokesperson added that it would bid no higher than UAH8 billion. As reported yesterday by CommsUpdate, in the event of a sole bidder, the SPF will still offer the stake, but only after an independent evaluation which will take at least 45 days.
The Delo.ua report quotes speculation from experts, including Alexander Cooper, former head of the SPF, that Epic could act as an intermediary in the interests of a third party, which could be MTS, in an attempt to bring down the price. However, presenting a potential obstacle for this scenario, Ryabchenko said the stake in Ukrtelecom may not be subsequently resold without the consent of the SPF until such time as the buyer meets all investment obligations.
Austrian privately held investment banking firm Epic has offices in 18 countries and participates in the telecoms, pharmaceuticals and energy markets. In the Ukrainian market, the company has acted as financial advisor to Utel, the 3G mobile division of Ukrtelecom, as well as advising on various mergers and acquisitions. Until late 2006, Epic was a major shareholder of the Ukrainian company Quinto, engaged in asset management and public investment funds. Epic’s locally registered subsidiary Esu (formerly RBScom) is a contractor used by mobile operators in deploying networks, with five offices across Ukraine.
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