Russia’s Answer to Office 365 Helps Putin With African Ambitions

LONI PRINSLOO AND ILYA KHRENNIKOV

WHILE the world’s leading tech companies are focused on expanding their cloud computing capabilities, a tiny Russian software company is making inroads in Africa by offering governments there a chance to keep their data close to home. 

MyOffice, which offers a suite of productivity software to compete with Microsoft Corp.’s Office 365, has struck deals for software licenses with the governments of Cameroon, Burundi, and Congo. It’s targeting 23 additional African countries.

MyOffice can be much cheaper than the U.S tech giant’s package, which has been rebranded as Microsoft 365. But the smaller company is also playing to demand from officials who are wary of storing data on servers located outside their own borders.Cameroon is running a pilot project involving 500 free MyOffice licenses for schoolchildren and is considering whether to install the software in other government offices. Laurent Etoundi, minister for basic education, says