Engineers all over the world develop in the MATLAB environment, this is their favorite tool. Can the Russian IT industry offer a worthy alternative to expensive American software?
With this question, I came to Vyacheslav Petukhov, the founder of the 3V Service company, which produces the domestic simulation and development environment SimInTech. After trying to sell his development in America, he returned to Russia and is making a MATLAB competitor here.
We talked about the difficulties of introducing a complex IT product to the Russian market, marketing "on the edge", the principles of SimInTech and its advantages over MATLAB.
The full version, which covers a lot of interesting issues, you can see on my . Here I will give in a compressed form some interesting points, creatively reworked for printed format.
Farya:
What is the SimInTech environment written in?
Vyacheslav Petukhov:
- Initially and now it is written in Pascal.
- Seriously? Does anyone else write on it?
- Yes. He quietly develops himself, Skype was written in Delphi. When we started development, it was almost the first environment in which you could quickly type code without bothering and get to the point.
- Compared to MATLAB, which SimInTech libraries, in your opinion, are the strongest now, which ones are still unfinished, which ones are planned to be finalized?
- The mathematical core is already ready, you can use it. Hydraulics ready. The boiling of water in the pipes and the operation of the turbine is the basis, where it all began. One customer tried to calculate using MATLAB for a long time, but in the end nothing worked for him, we solved this problem literally in a day.
In general, we have nothing unfortunate, but there are areas where we have not dug yet. Let's say MATLAB has a toolbox for calculating the dynamics of aircraft, but we don't. But this is not because we lack something, we just do not do it.
What about automatic code generation? MATLAB is very proud of this.
- That's funny. Matlab code generation is just a joke. If we talk about our product, now NPP operators open a laptop at the station, open the circuit in SimIntech, connect it to the rack that controls the reactor, and edit this circuit. There is no programmer.
***
β It seems to me that this is a very interesting story that you are making your own complex Russian product, but why do you have such tough marketing? Why is it necessary to insert βMATLABβ into every hole (hole)?
- Because initially all our commercial projects began with MATLAB. I believe that MATLAB is used by everyone, it is a de facto standard, they are on the market, everyone knows them. And so we come and say: "We have everything the same, only better." But a problem often arises when you come with a Russian product: βWhat is this, import substitution? They took it, laundered the money, now they are trying to sell us βthisβ ... "
- Here is one of your quotes from VKontakte:
And at the same time, you say that in relation to SimInTech, the concept of "import substitution" should not be used. Even though you're hinting at it yourself.
- It says here that the university paid 25 β½. For what? Why should a university buy MATLAB for 000 rubles?
Why should he buy SimInTech?
β SimInTech no need to buy. Download and learn. Transfer functions, phase-frequency analysis, stability. All this can be done for free. We can download the demo version and do all this in it.
β And how long is this demo version available?
- There is no time limit, but there is a difficulty limit - 250 blocks. For training, this is through the roof. No need to spend money on Americans.
- I often see your comments in social networks and on HabrΓ© with indignation about MATLAB. βThey did something and MATLAB couldnβt calculate, but we do.β But for a person who works in MATLAB, this means that he simply misunderstood. You open the documentation, and everything turns out.
- It's clear. But my job is to sell you. How else can I sell you if you use MATLAB? You will call your engineers and tell them: "The guys have come, they want to offer us an analogue of MATLAB." And the engineer in Matlab has a library and a bunch of everything. He will open SimInTech and say: "Oh, yes, your interface is not like that, yes, your lines are drawn incorrectly, etc."
So that's the problem with business. Many companies that are trying to sell a product go for tricks. Arrange trainings, show the product "face" ...
- Our customer will come to us because he has a problem with MATLAB. And those who have no problems with MATLAB, who are satisfied with everything, in principle, are not our customers. They won't come. I need everyone to know that SimInTech is the same as MATLAB but better.
β That is, you are promoting at the expense of MATLAB?
- Well yes.
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β Why did you come to competitors in Softline (MATLAB distributors)?
I offered them a brilliant business idea. I know that somewhere around 50% of their profits go to America. Let's leave this 50% here and with this money we will develop anything.
β How did your meeting end?
- Their director said: "I'm not interested, I'm fine anyway." I did not want to participate in the process of marketing support: lessons, presentations, materials, educational literature. I wanted Softline, the way it sells MATLAB, to sell SimInTech. The money that is now going to America could be kept and shared with us.
β Very ambitious...
If you like it, I invite you to watch .
Write in the comments what you think about the development of domestic analogues of advanced imported software.
Source: habr.com