US-based Amazon, the operator of the largest on-line shopping portal, has rented 2 floors in an office project in Bucharest, real estate market sources say.
The office space, which covers more than 1,500 square metres, is located in the Unimed building in the Piata Universitatii area, according to the same sources. The lease was signed at the end of last year.
The American company entered the Romanian market in November last year, when it opened a software development centre in Iasi. The company officials at the time announced they intended to develop a similar centre in Bucharest.
Considering the amount of space rented, the number of people Amazon might be hiring in Bucharest is estimated at several dozen IT engineers and administrative staff.
Amazon''s centres in Iasi and Bucharest would be the fifth and sixth software development centres outside the United States of America. It has similar centres in Scotland, South Africa and India. The job advertisements published by Amazon for the Romanian market include Software Development Engineer, Database Architect, Quality Assurance Engineer and Office Manager. When contacted by ZIARUL FINANCIAR, Amazon''s representatives in Romania did not provide any comment.
The step taken by Amazon in Romania indicates that this market has officially drawn the attention of the world''s IT giants. The IT companies that are now conducting operations on the Romanian market are the software supplier Oracle, which now occupies 7,000 square metres in an office building in Floreasca, as well as US-based IBM, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Motorola and Microsoft.
At the end of last year, Larry Ellison, Oracle''s head, said in San Francisco that Romania was one of the important locations for the technology and technical support centres of the US-based company. Oracle now has eight technology and support centres in Romania, employing more than 200 specialists.
The international auction site Ebay has just one employee in Romania.
Microsoft recently began exporting staff from their Romanian branch. One of the four founders of Microsoft Romania, Paul Miches, left for London early in the year, taking over the job of Readiness Manager for Europe, the Middle East and Asia (EMEA). At the same time, Dorin Badea left for Glasgow to become Microsoft Services Lead for the Scottish branch as of January 1, 2006.
Amazon was established by Jeff Bezos in a garage in the United States of America in 1994 and has grown to become a business of more than 5 billion euros in the meantime. Over the years, Amazon has constantly expanded its fields of activity, beginning to sell CDs and DVDs, and then electronics, toys and consumer goods.
The company''s market value stands at 14.1 billion dollars (11.7 billion euros), with Amazon posting revenues of some 7 billion dollars in 2005.
Jeff Bezos came out 17th in the ranking of richest people in the IT industry put together by Fortune. His wealth can be estimated at 5.1 billion dollars (4.16 billion euros). alexandru.cerchez@zf.ro
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