Two important events took place this year: Bill Gates visited Romania, and Silviu Hotaran once again became General Manager of Microsoft Romania, after three years of managing the business in the region.
The visit of Microsoft's chairman was seen as a sign of how important Microsoft Romania has become for the American company, and of the contribution of the Romanian community at the Redmond campus in Washington, named "Little Romania". Growth could have been even higher if sales in the public sector had not been restrained because of the political crisis at the beginning of 2007. "It is clear that the political situation is influencing our business in the public sector," Hotaran said.
"Microsoft Romania increased much more than Microsoft Bulgaria, which joined the European Union on the same day as Romania, considering that our public sector is not productive," Hotaran told Business Standard. "In the first half of this year the public sector represented much less than I would want or than it should. We hope things will change for the better, but this is not entirely up to us," he added.
This year, Microsoft Romania launched Vista Office 2007, which brought a 60 percent increase in enterprise agreements and a 40 percent rise in original equipment manufacturer (OEM) licensing. Information Worker (which manages Office packages) registered a 63 percent annual increase due to the launch of Office 2007.
