
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 4, 1992                   TAG: 9203040094
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, CALIF.                                LENGTH: Medium

SUN 1ST TO TAP RUSSIAN TALENT

Sun Microsystems Inc., a high-technology company with operations in Roanoke, has hired a top Moscow supercomputer science team in the first big U.S. corporate recruitment of Russian brains since the Cold War ended.

Experts said Tuesday that Sun's move could presage more American business exploitation of talent in the former Soviet superpower and sustain its high-tech industry, once devoted almost exclusively to military might. The Sun recruits will stay in Moscow.

U.S. companies that hire Russian computer experts under such an arrangement could gain key research intelligence at low cost, while resourceful Russian scientists get to keep working at home, possibly toward creating a domestic commercial high-tech industry.

"1992 was shaping up to be a do-or-die year for the Soviet computer industry," said University of Arizona professor Peter Wolcott, an expert on Russian computer scientists. "If they weren't able to find some sort of outside support, they were going to lose people."

When the Soviet Union collapsed last year, Russian scientists were left without central government funding after a lifetime of developing high-tech machines for the military buildup during the Cold War.

Pentagon spokeswoman Jan Walker said the U.S. government could step in to make sure military secrets aren't exchanged under Sun deals, but the biggest fear has been that Russian scientists would work for U.S. enemies.

"It could be that what Sun Microsystems is doing is . . . the future," Walker said. "The concern has been that Russian scientists would sell their talents to somebody like Libya, not American companies."

Several other U.S. high-tech companies such as Apple Computer Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are considering using Russian technologies, and Hewlett-Packard Co. has hired a Russian scientist to work in America.

But under the Sun agreement, which has been in the works for more than one year, its team of recruits will remain at the Moscow Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

"The fact that they're staying in Moscow is significant," said Wolcott. "If they moved them out to California, it would contribute to the brain drain."

by CNB