Aktivnye Tekhnologii (at.nnov.ru) — the website of the Nizhny Novgorod firm "Aktivnye Tekhnologii" ("Active Technologies"), which handled accounting automation on 1C software and supplied retail equipment, computers, local networks and security systems. The title of the home page in the earliest surviving snapshot read "Aktivnye Tekhnologii, Nizhny Novgorod"[1]. The office was located first at 127 Vaneyeva Street[1], and by 2008 at 50 Gagarin Avenue[3]. Snapshots of the home page survive from 1 June 2002[1] to 22 January 2013[5]; in the last of them the company is called a "software and systems integrator"[5]. One of the corporate sites of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet of the 2000s.

The first versions: a software catalogue and a feed of deployments

In 2002 the site was arranged as a showcase of services with a news feed. The menu divided "integrated automation" into industrial enterprises and "supermarkets, shops, pharmacies", and next to them stood the sections "Software products", "Retail equipment", "Computers and networks", "Services and maintenance", "Company information" and "Prices and catalogue"[1]. A separate column carried an index of software running to some twenty-five entries — from "1C", bookkeeping and payroll to hotels, catering, medicine, insurance, bar coding and the heading "Yuvelir" ("Jeweller")[1]. The contacts listed: Nizhny Novgorod, 127 Vaneyeva Street, office 46, email mail@at.nnov.ru, telephones (8312) 35-76-33 and (8312) 35-95-81[1].

The news of spring 2002 listed specific deployments: 19 April — a further stage in the automation of OAO "Volzhsky Yuvelir" ("Volga Jeweller"), its head office and the shops "Rubin" ("Ruby"), "Ametist" ("Amethyst") and "Yantar" ("Amber"); 29 April — completion of the main part of the deployment of "1C:Accounting 7.7" and "1C:Payroll and Personnel 7.7" at the company "Transtelekom-NN"; 13 May — the start of a project to automate "the first self-service pharmacy in Nizhny Novgorod". One entry was not about business at all: on 3 May 2002 it was reported that the firm's staff "spent the May holidays in fine style at the Dubki boarding house"[1].

By October 2003 the menu had gained "Security systems" and "Seminars", as well as a "Company news" block with partners' feeds — those of Aktivnye Tekhnologii itself, of "Kurs" ("Course") and of "Intalev"[2]. The address stayed the same; the telephones changed to (8312) 17-21-33 and (8312) 17-25-81[2]. Among that year's news: on 1 July the company was named one of the ten "Silver partners" of the consulting and implementation firm "Intalev" in Russia and the CIS countries; on 2 September the automation of the household goods supermarket "Avtozavodsky Univermag" ("Avtozavod Department Store") on "1C:Trade and Warehouse 7.7" was completed, and, as the home page reported, "for the first time in the Nizhny Novgorod region" the software "ATOL:Cashier's Workstation" was installed as the front office; on 7 October a project was delivered for the fashion clothing boutique "City Moda" with a Flytech POS-400 checkout system[2]. Across the top of the page hung the line "Get the latest issue of the magazine 'BUKH.1S' as a gift!!!" — that was how the site presented an offer for anyone who signed a contract for monthly software support before 31 December 2003[2].

The site on Bitrix: lines of accounting, a certificate count, a move

By January 2008 the site had been rebuilt on "Bitrix: Site Management"[3]. The menu was laid out by line of business: "About the company", "Management accounting", "Retail accounting", "Financial accounting", "Systems integration" (technical maintenance, structured cabling and telephony, access control, video surveillance), "Plastic cards" and "Audit". Within each line the same set of subsections recurred — news, software, price list, clients, "Questions and answers"[3].

The news feed then ran to 33 entries, and its running theme was the tally of 1C certificates: every congratulation to an employee ended with a line about the total number of certificates for the "1C:Enterprise 8" system — 23 in November 2006, 36 by 23 November 2007[3]. By the same feed, the company's birthday was reckoned to be 8 December: in 2006 it marked six years, in 2007 seven, meaning the count ran from December 2000. On that day the staff were addressed by "the general director of ZAO 'Aktivnye Tekhnologii', Alexey Nikolayevich Kasatkin"[3]. Other entries from those months: on 19 March 2007 a certificate was received registering a service centre for cash registers; on 20 January 2007 the third self-service shop of the NDTsRS chain was opened, and the fifth on 14 May; from 22 October an authorisation card was issued to buyers of ForPOSt POS terminals; until the end of 2007 the "Transition 2008" offer was in force, with the price of moving from "1C:Accounting 7.7" to "1C:Accounting 8" set at 9,900 roubles[3].

The footer carried a new address: Nizhny Novgorod, 50 Gagarin Avenue, building 15, office 224, email office@at.nnov.ru, multi-line telephone (831) 415-16-17[3].

2010–2013: an online shop, "internet solutions", customer testimonials

By September 2010 the pages had acquired a login and password, registration, a shopping cart and "My orders" — the site had become a shop as well[4]. The range went beyond accounting software: an "Apple hardware catalogue" appeared within "Systems integration", and a news item of 25 June 2010 offered Neoline DVR-1010 car video recorders for 5,500 roubles and the DVR-2000 for 9,200 roubles[4]. "Internet solutions" became a line of its own: corporate websites, intranets, a "Solution for government bodies", domain registration[4]; by 2013 these had been joined by "Solutions for medical organisations", website development on "1C-Bitrix" and a "Visitor counting system"[5]. By September 2010 the news feed had grown to 117 entries[4]. The footer kept the line "Site built on 1C-Bitrix ver. 8.0.3 Studio ka.nnov.ru"[4].

At the same time the email address in the contacts changed: instead of office@at.nnov.ru[3], office@at-nn.ru was given, with the same telephone (831) 415-16-17 and the same office on Gagarin Avenue[4].

Customer testimonials — almost all of them from Nizhny Novgorod — took a prominent place in the later versions. The 2013 home page listed testimonials from Alexander Kvasov, president of the Nizhny Novgorod Club of IT Directors (about the club's site, which in his words had become "practically a social network of its own"), and also from OOO "Praktika" ("Practice"), OOO "Sladkaya Zhizn" ("Sweet Life"), the Nizhny Novgorod Grain Company and the "Ankudinovka" IT park[5]; in 2010 the home page carried a testimonial from Dmitry Moskalenko, owner of the "Laguna Yug" ("Lagoon South") leisure complex[4].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet and the fate of the domain

at.nnov.ru was neither a news outlet nor an entertainment portal — it was the corporate site of an automation contractor, and its prominence was of the corresponding order. In the digest of the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating the site is recorded from the nn.ru catalogue (the /rub/ section), and its figure on Counter.nn.ru is 855. In the voting table of Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day for 2004 no votes for at.nnov.ru were recorded[6].

The last recorded snapshot of the home page is dated 22 January 2013[5], and the study puts the lifespan of the domain at 2002–2013, eleven years. By the liveness probe the domain is listed as dead; the dossier holds no note of a move to another address, although the company's email had gone over to the at-nn.ru domain as early as 2010[4].

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2008 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2010 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Home page, 2013 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day voting results, 2004 (archive)