Market analysts believe that the impact generated by this resizing of the industry will not be dramatic, with a large portion of specialists to be taken over by other companies, and because the contribution by the IT industry to the state budget is traditionally insignificant.
Gabriel Marin, Managing Director of Omnilogic, said that the second half of the year will see unemployment from the IT industry increase some 30-40 percent, or 100,000 employees. “I believe that Romania is presently in a position in which it must evaluate the market in real terms. It is not sufficiently large for 3,000 IT companies, perhaps half would be a real figure,” added Marin.
The local hardware market dropped in the first half of the year by some 50 percent, while the decline in software and services was 20 percent, said players. At present, two major players RHS Company and Tornado Sistems, are in the midst of a merger. “Personally, I do not see important players disappearing from the IT market. Many small and very small companies will. Distributors will remain, albeit fewer, and with a much more pragmatic and prudent business model than in the past two years,” according to a declaration for Business Standard by Eugen Schwab-Chesaru, Managing Director for Central and Eastern Europea of the Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) research and strategic consulting firm, who added that it is mostly marketing, administrative, and sales staff that have been affected, and less specialists in the field.
According to the most recent estimates by the International Data Corporation research and consulting company, the local IT market will drop in 2009 by some 15.3 percent, to €1.5 million.
