A new era is beginning for Russian laptops: goodbye to imported operating systems!

The Russian electronics market is expected to undergo significant changes. The country's business community and IT specialists are pushing an initiative to make it mandatory to install locally-made operating systems on imported laptops. This was announced by Alexei Melnikov, managing partner of the Russian IT holding Fplus, to the media.

Now it is proposed that all laptops sold in electronics stores, online stores and marketplaces in Russia must have one of the operating systems of local development - "Alt", Astra Linux or Red OS. Melnikov expressed confidence that this new requirement will not have a negative impact on the country's economy or market. "Nothing will happen - neither inflation, nor other market events," he stressed.

This initiative is similar to the previous procedure for mandatory installation of Russian applications on smartphones. That is, now a consumer who buys a laptop will be able to choose the local operating system of his choice during the first launch of the device. However, the idea of installing Russian mobile operating systems such as Aurora or Red OS Mobile on smartphones was not supported by the Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev. The reason was that this could lead to a decrease in the volume of imported products.

At the same time, the head of the Russian Association of Electronic Communications Ekaterina Demkina noted that the process of mass installation of local operating systems on laptops would be very complicated. In her opinion, the current readiness of the OSes provided by local developers is not sufficient. This may require additional time and money to fully meet the introduced requirements.

At the same time, the total share of laptops with local operating systems installed on the Russian market remains very low - approximately 2-3 percent. Despite the fact that the laptop market in Russia grew by 242 billion rubles (about 3.9 million devices) in 2024, laptop sales in the first quarter of 2025 decreased by 12 percent, Kommersant reported, citing its source.

Experts emphasize that this initiative will serve to increase the country's technological independence. At the same time, some analysts and market participants express concern that the introduction of the new requirement could lead to drastic changes in the Russian electronics market. Although the exact date of implementation of this new order has not been announced, it signals the beginning of important changes for Russian consumers.