five - seven thousand dollars which they invested in the LBS Corporation which was started-up. They continued to import cars for a while but soon they decided to quit the used cars importing business after an unlucky trip during which an accident has happened and one of them was seriously injured and one car was completely destroyed. The matter is that the cars were often in a poor technical condition and problems with Mafia constantly appeared, so this business was really risky and in addition they saw another opportunity of making money with the help of the newly established firm. I should mention that in that time the environment they had to deal with was really unstable and they had no definite intentions, no business plan when they decided to start up, that is interesting. When I asked one of the founders how could it be and what were they thinking about, he replied that they were thinking in a way that "there will be a day, there will be food". I think, hardly someone except Russians can refer in that way to that sort of questions. But everything happened exactly like that. First they founded their firm and then they began to look for an opportunity and found it. p> In that time the depression effect had been in force and the demand for river tours in Russia dramatically decreased. As a result of it, the Volga river fleet was doing almost nothing. As a consequence of that, it was easy and inexpensive to freight a ship, if you needed one. So they did. They organized river tours for foreigners for whom Russia was extremely interesting after the Iron Curtain had just been lifted. They were in this business for one season only and then quit. It became unprofitable for some reason. p> Here I have to step aside a little from the point and mention the following: it is very often difficult to get information in Russia, especially from a businessman about his business. They are used to keep silent and they are sometimes extremely jealous about the figures. Though they know you cannot harm their business and the information will not go further, they will feel uncomfortable if their confidential information is shared with someone. Sometimes you have to be glad they give you some information about their business and when once began to get into details during speaking with one of the three men he went ballistic and told in an unpleasant manner that he would not let him been questioned. So I had some lack of information about the past of the LBS Corporation, but the situation with information about its present is much better for me since I was and I am connected with that company and I have a job there, but I will return to this a little bit later when we are finished with the history of the LBS Corporation.
After they quit the river tour business they saw their next opportunity in the computer industry business. A friend of one of them was a programmer and an informal leader of a collective of programmers and technicians. It was the dawn of Russian computer market in that time. The LBS Corporation hired that collective and began to manufacture (to be more exact- to assemble) and to resell computers and develop software. p> The LBS Corporation was more oriented towards corporate users. In 1993-1995 not many Russians could afford a personal computer. The buyers were mostly corporations. After the Soviet system the market environment required new methods of business administration and for many corporations it became clear that what they really need is computerization. Also a deficit of software solutions was taking place at that time. Of course, there was imported software but there was a demand for individual solutions in the market. And of course the networking business was growing. p> The LBS Corporation operated in all of the three segments and offered complex solutions consisted of computers, software and networking. p> This business was bringing significant income. But as the computer market developed, the competition became stronger. Some of the hired programmers separated and started their own business. On the other hand, the LBS Corporation did not want to go to the basic level computers segment which became growing faster and faster. This required investment and they did not think they should go into that segment because they though that in a year "Everyone in Russia will be assembling computers". p> As the market was growing, there became more software developing companies offering their products in Russia. The LBS Corporation had do face many strong competitors among which there were not only newly established Russian companies but also some of the Western software developers which decided to start operations in Russia. Despite of this, the LBS Corporation still operates in this market but it failed to capture a significant market share. It still has many of the clients which were acquired in 1993-1995. The LBS Corporation does not want to make expensive ma...
