PRESS: Russia’s Defense Ministry picks new media monitoring system

MOSCOW, Sep 27 (PRIME) -- Russian company M 13, creator of the monitoring system Katyusha, has won the Defense Ministry’s tender to monitor media reports, having offered the minimum price of 100,000 rubles against the starting price of 30 million rubles, business daily Vedomosti reported Tuesday, referring to several people familiar with the matter.

M 13 is a new player on the market of mass media and social network monitoring. The ministry earlier worked with the domestic company Medialogia, whose latest contract with the authority was signed in the middle of 2015 for 12.6 million rubles.

The winner’s General Director Alexander Badikov earlier said M 13 started developing Katyusha in 2011.

The system’s advantages include a big base of sources, counting over 20,000 mass media names, as well as other technical features, Badikov said then.

M 13 earlier won a contract of the government and the presidential administration for supplies of the monitoring system for 79 million rubles.

An employee of a monitoring company estimated the country’s market at 3 billion–5 billion rubles per year with half of the amount coming from state contracts.

(64.1506 rubles – U.S. $1)

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