Headlines (December 22 2003):
IT News

The American business agency PRNewswire announced that the national card operator BORICA acquired the PROGNOSIS software for real time management. The aim of the software is to facilitate the management of the ATMs and POS terminals in the country. So far BORICA operates HP NonStop servers, and computer STEPS software by the Belgium Company Banksys.

According to the forecasts of the independent research company "CBN Panov and Stoichev" the business sector will remain the biggest software consumer with market share of 75-85% of the total sales of software in Bulgaria for the period 2003-2004. Software sales in Bulgaria marked a noticeable growth in 2002 compared to 2001 mainly in the finance sector.

According to the report of the World Economy Forum, USA is the world's leader in the use of information and communication software for stimulating the economic growth. Estonia is on 25th place and Slovenia is on 30th. After them are Czech Republic (33), Latvia (35), Hungary (36), Slovakia (41), Lithuania (42) and Poland (47). Bulgaria is on 67th place, whereas Romania and Croatia are respectively on 61st and 48th place. The full text of the document, which will be published in January 2004 and is created jointly with the information development department of The World Bank and the international business schools INSEAD, will reveal the conditions in 102 countries.

Experts from the National Statistic Institute said that the prices of nutritious gods have risen by 4.7% compared to the same period of the previous year. For non-nutritious goods this figure is just 0.1%. In November the inflation has also risen a lot. It is 1.8% higher than the previous month.

The vice Premiere Lidia Shuleva announced that each of JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, City Bank, Creditanstalt and Credit Swiss First Boston want to be consultant for the Bulgartabac privatization. The competition for the consultants will be arranged as soon as the document is published in the official gazette.

The public accounts of the Bulgarian Information Technologies PLC, also known as Bitex, reveal loss of more than 279 000 BGL for the ten months of this year. According to newspaper "Money" this negative result, of the already listed on the exchange company, is almost 2/3 lower than the 808 000 loss of the company in 2002.

From this summer the supplier of complex telecommunication equipment enriched its product line with hardware based systems for videoconference. This equipment makes it possible to transfer data from PC, DVD, VCR, digital projectors and etc.