Most important deal in Romanian IT industry ever becomes final

The Romanians that used to work on the development of the RAV antivirus programme acquired by Microsoft from GeCAD Software have already settled in the US along with their families. They are the members of the first antivirus software development department at Microsoft. Bill Gates’ company is also employing another over 200 Romanians.

The deal closed between Microsoft and GeCAD Software for the transfer of the RAV Antivirus technology in June became final just a few days ago, Radu Georgescu, chairman of the Romanian software developer told Ziarul Financiar. Consequently, every programmer to whom Microsoft offered a job in Seattle has already relocated to America, including the inventor of the RAV Antivirus engine himself.

Part of those that were not invited to join Bill Gates’ team have been hired by other major security solution providers such as Kaspersky (Russia) and H+BEDV (Germany). All in all, approximately 20 programmers left GeCAD.

The exact number of Romanians to have moved to Seattle is confidential, as is the value of the deal closed between Bill Gates’ company and GeCAD Software. At the time of the announcement, market sources estimated the transaction to be worth more than $10 million.

Everything that makes up the RAV Antivirus technology has found its way into Microsoft’s patrimony, as well. The software developed by the Romanians at GeCAD in almost nine years ended up on a single CD.

Besides antivirus programmers, Microsoft has also tried to lure other members of the GeCAD team and get them to come to Seattle. It is mainly about management members. Even Radu Georgescu himself was made an offer to move to the headquarters of the software giant. For the time being, however, Georgescu preferred to keep steering GeCAD and work only as a consultant for Microsoft.

The Romanians that moved to Seattle will keep working on RAV, a technology that is intended to help Microsoft make its debut on the antivirus software market.

A provision in the contract concluded with Microsoft prevents GeCAD from ever developing another antivirus technology. The exact future plans of the company are to be disclosed at the end of the month. Meanwhile, GeCAD has started to distribute the security solutions produced by the Japanese at Trend Micro, one of the top five players in this industry.

Microsoft’s takeover of the RAV technology is the biggest deal ever concluded in the Romanian IT industry. iuliana.susanu@zf.ro