»Bay Area's economic growth stunted by housing, education issues /Mercury News/
~ a professional earning the Bay Area's median income of $70,000 a year would earn, on average,
~ $63,000 in Minneapolis, a difference of $7,000
~ a Minneapolis professional's average annual expenses would be $28,000 less than the Bay Area professional's

»Kommersant /Programmed in Russia/
~ A Chinese developer earns $700 a month (=$8400 a year) on average,
~ Russia has approximately the same,” said Maxim Ageev, president at Quasar Micro
~ “But the salaries in Russia are going up
~ In Moscow, for instance, it is no longer profitable to develop the export software”
~ The exports of Russia’s software grew 30 percent to $1 billion in 2005,
~ having lifted the country to the fourth score in the world
~ The rising wave will survive till the end of decade, the analysts forecast,
~ pointing out the moderate-priced but quality software and services of Russian IT-companies are gaining popularity worldwide
~ It was Russia’s IT and Communication Minister Leonid Reiman,
~ who emphasized the software growth in Russia
~ Software firms derived over $1 billion from exports in 2005, 30 percent up on year, Reiman said
~ “By our estimate, Russia’s software exports will be stepping up at the relative pace in the near years,” said reps of the ministry
~ The optimistic sentiment of the ministry is shared by the market
~ The players say today’s growth in software export revenues averages 15 percent to 20 percent,
~ from 1.5 fold to 2 fold ahead of the industry’s acceleration in Russia
~ Western orders account for the lion’s share of export earnings
~ Russia is the fourth today in terms of revenues derived from offshore software engineering
~ “IT-specialists have at least two competitive advantages The first one is innovation
~ Western clients are impressed by originality of their software,” said Sergey Gorbuntsov from J`Son & Partners
~ “The second advantage is the favorable location of Russia
~ Russia’s programmers can easily cooperate with western clients and development partners”
~ The constraining factor is the increase in Russia’s economy and welfare of the population, including programmers
~ “In Russia, one of the key problems of software exporters is growing costs for personnel,
~ which is the key item of expense for IT-firms