"Microsoft" Innovation Center in Serbia in 2010 - specific solutions for banks and stores

- IT company "Microsoft" plans to open an innovation center in Serbia next year - said Vladan Živanović, the Manager of Serbia-based office of "Microsoft".

He told "Beta" agency that the founding of the innovation center for development of IT solutions was big and "demanding investment from technological point of view", and he added that that was the reason why its realization could not take place in 2009 when the market conditions were not good.

In the innovation centers, the partners of "Microsoft" use the platform of that company to create specific solutions for the needs of various users, such as banks and stores.

- I think that the conditions will be created by the end of this calendar year, and that we can expect the innovation center in Serbia to be opened in 2010 - said Živanović.

As Živanović explained, the rule is that the innovation center be founded outside the capital city, in one of the centers whose development "Microsoft" wants to stimulate, and it is not founded by "Microsoft"alone, but in association with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other organizations.

There are over 60 innovation centers in the world.

Živanović said that the Microsoft Development Center in Serbia was currently working on five projects, one of which is the handwriting recognition project for cyrillic text and some letters with specific symbols, such as Baskian and Arabian. There are also the map recognition project and SQL database development project.

- There are five development centers in the world - said Živanović and added that they functioned as "Microsoft's laboratories outside the headquarters in Redmond", in which software designers developed solutions to be applied in the future, mainly in the "Microsoft" operative systems and databases.

As he explained, Serbia has applied for two more projects, but "the economic situation makes further development of these projects uncertain".

- The development center in Belgrade was the result of lucky and good circumstances since Serbia had veterans who worked in "Microsoft" and who were willing to come to Serbia to start certain projects.

- The enclave of Serbian staff in "Microsoft" is pretty big, one of the richest within Microsoft's structure, and we were so lucky to have two veterans with the ambition to come to Serbia and introduce some new technology here - said Živanović.

Microsoft Corporation Washington

Microsoft software doo Beograd

USAID Srbija

Vladan Živanović

USAID

SQL

Redmond