Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1992. január-június (46. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)
1992-03-19 / 12. szám
Thursday, March 19. 1992. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO “A superpower in mathematics” ■ " By Peter Maass Shopping street in the Budapest inner city INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE SERVICE CORPS STAMFORD-HAPBOR PARK. 333 LUDLOW STREET STAMFORD. CONNECTICUT 06902 TELEPHONE (203) 967-6000 TELEX 413874 (INTEXUI) FAX (203) 324-2531 International Executive Service Corps (IESC), a not-for-profit private organization funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (U.S. AID), recently established a Trade and Investment Services (TIS) program for Hungary to facilitate trade and investment between U.S. and Hungarian businesses. Because IESC's TIS program received outside funding it can provide business services at little or no cost to U.S. and Hungarian firms. For Hungarian businesses, TIS/Hungary can source U.S. equipment, locate prospective buyers for the company's products in Western markets, and prepare detailed market research reports. For U.S. businesses, the program can help source Hungarian products and make business introductions. TIS/Hungary is also very active in finding joint venture partners and individual investors for various Hungarian enterprises. IESC itself has been actively involved in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989. Founded in 1965 by David Rockefeller,* IESC recruits highly skilled U.S. business executives and sends them overseas on short term (2/3 month) assignments. The executives work with private businesses in developing nations and countries entering into free market economies. All serve on a volunteer basis. Those assigned by IESC are selected from an in-house Skills Bank of 12.500 retired executives representing the very best that U.S. business can provide. More than 13.000 projects have been completed worldwide in 90 nations since the company's founding. Interested companies should contact IESC's TIS/Hungary project Officer for further details about the new TIS/Hungary program. For more information, please contact Mr. Peter Korzenik, Project Office, TIS/ Hungary, International Executive Service Corps, P.O. Box 10005, Stamford, Ct. telephone: 1 -800-243-4372 or (203) 9676361. BUDAPEST. Nine years ago, a few computer whizzes from Hungary went to a trade fair in Western Europe and caught the eye of talent scouts from Apple Computer, Inc. With a wink at trade restrictions, Apple gave the promising Hungarians two computers, a couple thousand dollars and a challenge to develop world-class software. Apple's investment behind the "Iron Curtain" led to the emergence of Graphi- soft, a Hungarian software company that went on to create a popular software program for computer-aided design. Graphisoft, whose sleek offices in a renovated Budapest mansion bear all the brash trademarks of Silicon Valley-style success, is an example of the commercialization of an unheralded asset in struggling Eastern Europe: brains. Like its niche market, Graphisoft is small, with just 5 million dollars in 1990 sales, But the firm says its software, targeted at architects who use Apple's Macintosh computers, has gained a 50% marketshare in Western Europe and 1*0% in the USA. Its success goes beyond numbers, marking one of the few instances in which an East European firm has bested Western rivals in a high-tech sector. The company's founder, Gábor Bojár, has become an entrepreneurial hero in Hungary and he met with President Bush during the latter's 1989 visit to Budapest. The regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe may have ruined virtually everything they touched, but scientific and mathematical training was not among them, as demonstrated by the fears that Soviet nuclear experts might be lured away by countries trying to develop a bomb. Many foreign investors believe the region's most important assets are the low-cost skills of its researchers, engineers and workers rather than the antiquated facilities they work in. Hungary, whose flirtation with market economics over the past two decades gave it a headstart on the rest of Eastern A new company has just been set up at Győr, Western Hungary, to prepare for the construction of an international port on the River Danube between the Hungarian towns of Gyor and Gonyii. The capital of the venture is 6 million forints. The three foreign shareholders - Yara Holding, an investment company based in Rome, Prognos AG of Basel, and ITAG, another consulting company from Basel - have contributed 40 percent between them. The remaining 60 percent has been put up by 20 Hungarian companies. Gyor-Gonyu Port Company is now to prepare a concessions bid at a cost of Euope, was the first to commercialize its brainpower and its computer software industry is a prime example. According to unofficial estimates, Hungary has several thousand software companies, although a minority of them are successful exporters. Seeking export markets in the 1970s, Hungarian computer experts realized they could not keep pace with the West's advances in the hardware sector, according to Győző Kovács, who helped plan Hungary's strategy, "The only area where Hungarians could compete was in software", he said. In Hungary, as in the rest of the region, computer experts were obliged to work on outdated systems. But they thrived on adversity by developing complex software programs that squeezed as much as possible from their deficient hardware. "The attitude of Hungarians was not to buy a better computer but to improve the software," said Reiner Schöning, head of the Hungarian unit of Siemens GmbH, the German electronics giant. "They are sort of magicians sometimes. I have seen computer systems with parts from seven different countries... It was unbelievable." Siemens was one of the first Western companies to exploit Eastern Europe's intellectual reserves. More than 20 years ago, Siemens began selling computer hardware to Hungary and instead of receiving cash payment, was "lent" some of the country's best computer programmers. The little-known "body leasing" program was used by many West European firms that did business with Hungary. Imre Pá- kozdi, a vice president of Graphisoft, believes Hungarian software developers now are as good as their Western competitors, thanks in part to their experience working in Western companies. But they suffer from a lack of marketing knowledge. "Hungary is a superpower in mathematics, but we did not have any university that taught how to organize a company * we have to learn these things," Pakozdi said. about 10 billion forints, since it wants to obtain concessions for the project. There is considerable foreign interest in the port project. When the Danube-Rhine-Main canal is opened, the international Hungarian port will link up directly with the West European region. Mayor David N. Dinkins and Mayor Gabor Demszky of Budapest announced the establishment of a Sister City agreement between the people of New York and Budapest, Hungary. COMPANY TO BUILD DANUBE PORT ungaru^Jo 5.
