Published by Mircea on 09 Mar 2005
IT Solutions in Romania
Note: this is not going to be an advertisment or anything else, this is purely a comment. It represents my own thoughts, as stated in Article 19 in Universal Declaration of Human rights.
Location: POLITEHNICA University - Bucharest > AN010
Time: 13:00 - ~16:00 GMT+2
Main Topic: Tornado Sistems
The offensive of the virtual world, your place and your profession’s place in this world… everything comming from professionals:
* TORNADO - Success in IT - Adrian Mantoiu - Marketing and Cmmunication Manager
* Communication Technologies - Catalina Lehanceanu
* The digital man - mobile, omnipresent, performant - Denis Brandmayer
– source: LSAC
I was informed about this meeting by a colleague of mine and I’ve told myself “Let’s see how the Romanian IT Industry shows itself in 2005. I could even check how a presentation is carried out by Romanians. Let’s see how they handle it, I’ve seen how foreigners do it… let’s make a comparison.” I hava attended a TECHTEAM presentation last year and all I can say is: I was left speachless by the delivery of the presentation. I could see the professionalism of the Belgian delivering the presentation. The content was also interesting. I was introduced to a true application of outsourcing.
Now, to answer some of my first questions.
Q: How did they do the presentation compared to what I’ve seen before?
A: They passed. I enjoyed it, even if it had a touch of “balcanism” (structure, delivery - especially wording).
Q: Did they manage to keep the attention of the listeners active?
A: Well… not quite. Some of the students left after some time. Most likely, they had classes. Even so, not all that left had classes. I bet that if the presentation was oriented more towards what they have to offer us, the presence would have been at least kept constant. Computer Science students are very pragmatic and using allusions (”abureli”) doesn’t make it. If we were given more info on what we should expect from the presentation, it would have been much better.
Now.. about the content:
Idea No. 1: They spoke my words when they were asked details - I really liked that :), especially the network related details. A good proof that there are some real professionals there.
TORNADO - Success in IT
This was an interesting introduction in what Tornado Sistems offers as IT solutions on the Romanian market. (it’s “Sistems” not with “y”, because the Chamber of Commerce didn’t allow using “y” when the company was registered - interesting, isn’t it? no comment). It is a BIG Romanian company - many numberes followed. As far as I know, it’s been on the covers of IT Magazines in Romania for a long time. Concepts, ideas, organisation… all to prove that Tornado Sistems is a real Solutions Provider on the Romanian Market.
I still have in my mind the question I’ve asked: “How much does an employee shown in the organisational flow-chart earn, approximately?” My curiosity wasn’t fulfilled. This seems to be a very well guarded answer. Self-evaluation is very hard to do nowadays, especially in an always changing environment. Figures count. I still have to find the right answer to the question: “What’s my value on the human resources market, in €/$?”
Communication Technologies
Ok, this was what I’ve enjoyed most. Not only the presentation was carried out by a really fine lady, Catalina, but also the really fine lady proved to be a very well informed lady. And, as you all know, when it comes to communication (speaking in this particular case), women do best. All I can say is: Congratulations!
The topics included:
- The future is IP - Triple Play - a solution to deliver Voice (Telephony), Video (TV) and Data (Internet) over IP - advantages over traditional means
- a VPN hardware solution implementing IPsec and it’s usage
The questions section here was interesting. Everyone was thinking of usages for both solutions, making assumptions and trying to figure in deep the inner workings of these technologies. Interest was definitely high on these topics.
The digital man
This last section was passed through in a bit of a hurry most likely because, after receving the top of the cake with the networking presentation, nobody was expecting anything else (and the time allocated for the presentation seemed to have passed) - now that I’m thinking, the really technical questions of the previous section might have borred some of them… but not me.
We’ve been introduced to the latest offerings when it comes to digital gadgets from Canon, BenQ and Philips. The HP Promoter Training I had made his appearance. I kept comparing in my head HP and Canon and I couldn’t help myself asking some question about Canon, having HP as a refference. I am affraid I was assumed to be a HP advocate because of the number of questions I’ve asked which involved HP. Well, the Canon affiliation of the speaker was obvious given the answers and I could sense a little anger. Looking over the situation with a critical eye, I can say the marketing strategies everyone teaches work pretty well 
Overall, it was a nice informative presentation about some IT solutions implemented by Tornado. Indeed, the networking soltions are not yet very addopted, but they are quickly gaining the targeted market share. Tornado seems like a nice and adventurous company when it comes to IT solutions. The huge portofolio & contacts (also important) can easily solve any IT problems you (most likely your company) might encounter.