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Comrade, You Are So Not Getting a Dell
theodp writes "At the World Economic Forum, Michael Dell's pitch to help Russia with its computers got the cold-as-Siberia shoulder from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. 'We don't need help,' shot back Putin. 'We are not invalids. We don't have limited mental capacity' (video — rant starts at 1:24). 'Our programmers are some of the best in the world,' Putin continued. 'No one would contest that here — not even our Indian colleagues.'"
"We don't need help. We are not invalids. We don't have limited mental capacity. Our programmers are some of the best in the world. No one would contest that here -- not even our Indian colleagues."
Failure to address the real issues (corruption, economy, etc) plaguing your society? Check.
Playing up a sense of extreme national pride, isolation and bullheadedness? Double check.
Burning a bridge? Triple check.
Putin, you would have made a fine leader during the Cold War for either side.
My work here is dung.
"Our programmers are some of the best in the world,"
Of course - after all, those viruses don't program themselves, now do they?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Pride goeth before a fall.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
> Our programmers are some of the best in the world
Yes. Just look at how they dominate the malware industry. And nobody is better at herding bots.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Of course, Putin is actually also correct to be worried. The 90s was full of foreign consultants coming over to Moscow and giving unbelievably bad advice that lead to premature loosening of all controls and a kleptocratic oligarchy shortly after that.
Now imagine that combined with a foreign profit seeking company offering to do the helping. I'm not entirely surprised Putin reacted as you would if Bill Gates came over to your FOSS startup and asked if you'd like an MS sales team to give you some free help and advice. Quite how naive do we assume Putin to be here? Russia isn't some failed state that cannot run it's own programs and make it's own choices. Authoritarian, yes, but competent at it.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
Most of it was also just a carbon copy of what was being done in the US. At some point in time, intelligent people say 'lets just buy the wheel and move on to making a cart.'
Not Invented Here slows down a lot more progress then it helps.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
In Putin's defense, he was slapping down a marketing pitch. The linked article gets it wrong on a subtle but significant detail: Mr. Dell didn't ask "If" Dell could help, he asked "How" Dell could help.
Who can blame Putin for being offended by the implication that Russia needed Mr. Dell's help? So he let him have it with both barrels, much as any of us might react to an unwanted and annoying telemarketer, if they gave us a similarly arrogant pitch.
And by the way, shouldn't the lame jokes be changed to start with "In post-Soviet Russia"?
No, it was more like "when are you going to start treating us as equals?"
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Swell.
Your understanding of the situation reminds me of Bush looking at his polls.
Putin, not big on technology, took Dell's question as an insult, and retorted with a prideful display. Nothing more than that.
Chances of Dell selling much into Russia? Poorer-- although it would be a great counter-culture way to insult Putin. For that alone, an offset may have been made so as to prevent Dell from having to file an 8K (for downward trend warning due to sales-geek faux pas).
Don't go in to politics.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
You really hit Putin's raw nerves here. Outside their country their mafia tactics are practically worthless (granted, some actual mafia tactics and the one or other radioactive sushi bar here and there) so they have little to be proud of. The Russians have let their game slide and now they are in a desperate economic state.
... he's very close to actually falling over it. You can't keep your economy running only with gas extortion and MP3 sites.
I would have taken Putin by the word 20 years ago and they probably would have blasted IBM out of the country with some Lada-type Diesel computer made from scrap metal and old nuclear reactors. But today. Not so sure anymore. What kind of sensible person would actually install a Russian operating system (let alone entire hardware solution)? We know they write spyware, so do the Americans but does that bother us? No. Because at least the Americans hide their stuff at all costs. Russians are just too straight forward. "I don't like, I kill you.", "I want information, I break your legs, then encryption."
The course that Putin is sailing right now leads to the edge of the world and from his point of view
"not even our Indian colleagues."
Am I the only one who thinks that even if there may be some good programers among them, most of the indians programmers are cheap labor like the chinese in manufacturing, they work long hours doing a so-so job without having much qualifications nor having to think much about the problems? This is based on what I've heard since I haven't worked with indians myself.
Maybe Putin meant to say that Russians were the best Delphi programmers in the world, which is probably true.
Unfortunately no one gives a crap about Delphi.
bezumetz, begletz dorogi net.. ti vidish neverni svet...
Not that I agree with him, but I understand Putin's response. Look at it from Putin's POV: Putin is a very strong nationalist. And just about every country, not least Russia, tends to be quite sensitive to American condescension or arrogance, real or perceived. So when Dell says, in what would be an okay-ish remark between Americans, 'how can we help you', it's easily felt as condescending in foreign eyes. Especially Russian ones and especially Putin's. Add to that the cultural factor of Russian temperament and you get what Putin said. Dell probably should have phrased it in a more neutral manner. For instance, he could have been more generalized and simply ask "How can the IT sector in Russia be expanded to better utilize the reserves of talent there?" Or something similar. By his response, you'll find out if there's a role for you or not. So simply by dropping the 'How can we help' bit, you avoid the implication that they _need_ help (even if they do, nobody really wants to be told that by someone else) and the further implication that 'we' are the only ones who can do so.
Not Invented Here slows down a lot more progress then it helps.
Maybe in the short term, but in the long term when you are talking about a whole society inventing things. The USSR, having different needs and different mindsets, may have come up with unique technologies that where not tried here. For instance, what if they would have gone the trinary route instead of binary, or if they had made their first computers more like the ideas behind the thinking machine from MIT. I think then you wouldn't be saying that it was a waste of time because their technology would show more of what is possible.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
Putin wasn't reacting to Dell offering computers so much as Dell suggesting that Russia had a problem with technical talent that needed addressing, which *is* obviously absurd! Even if Russia did have a problem developing IT talent, the solution isn't a big order of Dell computers, even if Dell honestly thinks it is.
Russian to English translation was mediocre (at least for the bits I could hear Putin say), so I wonder whether Dell's question had similarly poor translation and Putin didn't get the real meaning of what was asked.
I can see how his question could be translated to mean that Russian IT still sucks and needs help.
Authoritarian, yes, but competent at it.
Bollocks. Competent at being authoritarian, yes, as you'd expect from a bunch of Chekists.
Oil production (output) has fallen since the re-nationalisation by Putin and his cronies, and now that oil prices have fallen, the dependance of the Russian economy on commodity exports, and - shock - foreign investment has been revealed.
Make no mistake, they're in big truoble just like the other major world economies.
1. Putin has been addressing the economy pretty darn well. There was pretty dramatic GDP growth during his tenure.
2. While corruption is still high, it is MUCH lower than it was during Yeltsin years. Oligarchs don't open the doors in Kremlin with their foot anymore. The guy who tried to buy up enough of the parliament to pass his own laws (Khodorkovsky) is in the prison, where he will remain for a long time. Needless to say, the Russian people have much less sympathy to him that those who don't know what he's really in the prison for.
3. It's about time Russia asserted itself internationally. For nearly a decade and a half, Russia did exactly as IMF and Washington DC told it. Needless to say, neither of the two had Russia's interests in mind.
4. Putin was merely putting Dell in his place. Just because you got a ticket to Davos doesn't mean you're entitled to any kind of preferential treatment from the government. Dell is just "screwdriver assembly" company. There are plenty of those in Russia.
Questions?
From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia
Lower birth rates and higher death rates reduced Russia's population at a 0.5% annual rate, or about 750,000 to 800,000 people per year during the late 1990s and most of the 2000s. The UN warned that Russia's 2005 population of about 143 million could fall by a third by 2050.
From
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/state
State: 5 a: a politically organized body of people usually occupying a definite territory
If you need a body of people to be a state,
the I'd say that Russia is on its way to failure.
Russia - Where Russians go to die
-- The Onion
If this state is shared with the other large economies, it would fail to support your argument that the Russian government is not in fact reasonably competent. Other than that I would have to infer that you are claiming that all governments are incompetent. While I appreciate that this is a popular position for the Norquist/Libeterian crowd, I do not agree.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
The thing that you need to worry about is the God like persona that the media is painting Obama with. He may wind up being a good or even a great president, but no one is going to be able to live up to the hype that is being heaped upon him.
Ah, in my best 3rd-grade impersonation I can muster...He started it.
Seriously, you can blame the media up to a point, but the media didn't make over 500 campaign promises. He did. Let's see if he can merely live up to his own hype.
yes, it was more sensationalist and selective reading. It was more a bad simultaneous translation, as many Russians are noting. Plus it was not about Dell per se, it was "the IT sector" in general. see http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/36591
I'm pretty sure that was meant as an example only. The point being that GroupThink can hold us back. One of the arguments for capitalism is that you have N people all trying to find the best way to solve a problem, being rewarded when they do -- we're betting that it's more efficient in the long run to waste resources in the short term exploring different options and seeing which ones survive. When you see a whole group of players "give up" in a sense, and use the existing solution, you've got to be worried that there was some innovation there that just won't happen anytime soon now -- and if the idea is instilled that you should always go with the short-term efficiency of using off-the-shelf solutions, then you've got a long-term problem to deal with: entire generations raised to go with COTS rather than innovating. The bet here is that in the long term, it's more profitable to at least have some trained R&D people than an entire population of "users", dependent on others, and you can't have that without sometimes saying "no" to the salespeople.
because I am curious.
I would say two years in, because 9/11 wasn't Bush's mess either, he just got stuck with it.
Because the beauty of his joke was that everyone who read it would come up with, "Geeks bearing gifts", as it was just a simple substitution of one letter and at the same time educate some of the people who do not know where the original adage comes from.
The best textbooks are like this, in that they give you enough theory to draw your own hypothesis about a specific application. The worst textbooks give you a theory and than the author's own application of said theory.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
When has it ever been about intelligence when Politics or politicians are involved?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's not just nationalism. It's hubris. That has been a part of Russia's collective psyche for at least the past 100 years. They're not going to let anyone tell them what to do, and they balk at receiving help from anyone - it's a sign of weakness. They have a strong "us and them" mentality which has not faded away one bit since the end of Communism.
I can't really fault Russians or Putin for that, other countries are loud and proud of themselves and can also be a bit protectionist from time to time. But in Putin's case, it could be incredibly self-destructive, although I would bet that his people will support him even if it means economic disaster.
I'll probably get modded troll for that second paragraph, but just remember, in post-Soviet Russia, troll mods YOU.
This is surely incorrect. The USSR functioned for almost seven decades. The people of the Ukraine clearly had a falling standard of living as Stalin starved them but failed to successfully revolt or change the system. Likewise in China, the cultural revolution was not something associated with a huge rise in living standards but Communism survived. Or the Castros in Cuba after the fall of the USSR and resultant drop in subsidy. Or Afghanistan moving from Soviet subsidy to Taliban control. Or the long reign of Pinochet in Chile. Or, indeed, the continued existence of Zimbabwe as a state.
I would suggest that authoritarianism does not require a rise in living standards to keep on going, and indeed I would suggest that a perception of danger and mass insecurity in the face of either economic or military threat is what often creates it in hard times. If you are American you have surely just lived through a period where the political utility of the perceptual emergency was clear.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
While I appreciate that this is a popular position for the Norquist/Libeterian crowd, I do not agree.
Well, never though of myself as a Libertarian...
To clarify my thoughts; well, all G7 Govs. seem to have dropped the economic ball - in some way or another - in recent times, so we may, I suggest, reasonably claim that they're all incompetent in that regard.
Let's turn to the main point, to whit Putin. He has ruthlessly and systematically concentrated power just as much as any Tzar, (to be fair, so have others - think Burlusconi, Chavez...) I suggest it is therefore reasonable to assign the current condition of the Russian economy and state pretty much to him.
Now, do you seriously suggest that those two things are in good shape? Major western economies are in the toilet, for sure, but on all other criteria (democracy, corruption, life expectancy...) we're way ahead. My concern is that the signs are not good for progress in Rusia on ANY front.
Obama is different, one might say? Well, he doesn't seem particularly interested in cutting spending, so far. He's trying to get Republican/Conservative support on basically a spending bill (the "stimulus" plan). I haven't seen him pushing democrats to cut spending yet.
I didn't see the republicans pushing for smaller government recently.
There was a lot of big talk, but the government spending and debt kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
You can't take the sky from me...
Seriously, back that up with more than just cliches and rhetoric. 90% seems way too high, perhaps you just pulled it out of your ass to illustrate your point?
Secondly. Who is to say that "corporate theft and spying", or rather, the less rhetoric and hate filled "acquired by means other than inventing", is wrong? Most of the world did/does this. Not only that, but many developing nations are required to do this, else they would fall further behind the rest of the "honest" world.
Thirdly. Did you really need to phrase things the way you did? Do you really subscribe to the "west is best" or "west invented everything" attitude? If you do, then history disagrees with you, for the most part.
Now, do you seriously suggest that those two things are in good shape? Major western economies are in the toilet, for sure, but on all other criteria (democracy, corruption, life expectancy...) we're way ahead. My concern is that the signs are not good for progress in Rusia on ANY front.
I would agree that the West is indeed ahead on all fronts (including economically, in fact) but it is important to bear in mind the legacy that Putin came into power with. It is not entirely propaganda that makes people compare him positively to Yeltsin, I would say. The Russian body politic looks at Putin and compares him to Gorbachev's dismantling of the USSR and Yeltsin's disposal of the assets of the state for pennies on the dollar and loss of societal control. It is therefore not surprising that a program of controlling the oligarchs and bringing them under Kremlin control is popular. The Russian economy was starting to diversify, but was indeed focussed in energy. I think it is however fair to say that the economy did better under Putin than under any Russian leadership for at least a generation.
In terms of democracy, it is of course going backwards. I am however not entirely sure that's not what Russians as a body politic (which is very different from the urban intelligentsia) actually wants. It's a problem. I would also say that in a country where Stalin almost won a greatest Russian poll (while being Georgian, oddly enough) Putin's centralisation of power is not only not as big as any Tzar's but actually quite restrained. The rule of Stalin was essentially that of a Communist Tzar, and he killed millions.
The counterargument is that Putin's air force almost bombed me in Gori, Georgia. I was however mildly amused by this.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
However arrogant and egotistical you might think Putin is, Michael Dell is worse. I thought how Putin responded was restrained by comparison to what I would have said in the same situation. The larger context illuminates just how bigoted were Dell's comments. What a putz.
As an American socialist, Dell's attitude and values exemplify why I despise the American economic system as it is, and by extension our political system, since the same selfish arrogant egotistical bigoted putzes move freely back and forth between the two.
Quite. I can see why Putin's nationalist bluster about not needing the outside world might appeal to Joe Vodkabottle types in the sticks in Russia, but I'm surprised it appeals here on /.
If an American President had said it, you'd be mocking him.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Actually I think China and Russia have always been authoritarian apart from a few brief interregnums. Like the joke about women who date nice guys only when they are 'between bastards', China and Russia only have reformist governments when they are between tyrants. Typically those reformist governments collapse under attack from multiple would be tyrants. One tyrant wins and things go back to normal.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
What I mean by cut off is that they mostly just started using processors from the free world instead of making their own.
"Free" ;)
and a correlated reduction in debt.
The way to get out is to print (no, not borrow) money. Reducing the deficit, paying off the national debt, reducing personal or corporate debt will all cause a recession under the existing monetary system because it nukes the equivalent amount of credit.
It's all fairly simple once you understand that 95% of US money is credit and realise that growth == inflation == credit and debt.
Deleted
You're right, and I would criticize Bush II for not pushing for smaller government, less spending, etc. I don't criticize him for spending where government SHOULD spend.
On the other hand, we appear to want to spend more on a lot more programs now. It was bad enough with the spending by republicans; it appears that it will be worse with the spending by democrats.
There was a lot of big talk by Obama and democrats, too. But post-election, I have heard very little about "cutting spending." New cars for government employees doesn't exactly sound like "cutting unnecessary spending."
I will criticize republicans or democrats, I don't care. Right now, though, republicans are voting against spending, and I give them credit for that. Democrats, overwhelmingly, are for it, pushing for it, EXCITED about the government, gov't spending, and debt getting bigger. And their version of "bipartisan" means "republicans have to vote for this, too, but we're not changing anything in it." So, I'll criticize them for that.
Openly, you say? Didn't Obama, for example (I know, Obama != Congress), very much stress the problem of the spending the last 8 years? In his first week or so in office, has he done anything about it? Not really, but he sure is pushing other things (including abortion stuff). IMO, what you push for when you are first given the power to push shows where your real priorities are. Openly? Yeah, openly now, but he wasn't necessarily elected on a policy of "I want to spend more on unreformed government programs." At least, that's not the message I got.
We've seen what the USSR could accomplish as a go-it-alone economy, and it wasn't enough. Having a nominally capitalist system will help, but Putin needs to stop with the saber rattling and the blind nationalism.
We have so far seen what a large communist economy can accomplish in USSR. We have seen what a minimally capitalist Russia can do. But from the way Putin has been moving, he is not planning to stop there. It seems like he wants to be a monopoly player in any sector Russia has the power to do it. He is playing a game of chess with eastern Europe as his chessboard when it comes to oil pipelines. Attacking Georgia was a case of sacrificing a pawn to make a move on the queen - The BTC pipeline is the pipeline that will break Russia's monopoly on gas and Russia just made a move on it.
The same thing goes for any natural resources, Aluminium to Manganese -- Russia lets the oligarchs consolidate the industry with no regards to monopoly issues and at the last minute captures them back from them (or gets enough power to control the exports). You can't fault Russia for lack of extreme capitalism.
That said, it works for natural resources, but lack of protection for entrepreneurs has been a disaster in all other fields. Their productivity is actually falling in most sectors and they have been able to export limited number of branded products. If I were Putin, I would have asked for help in developing entrepreneurial culture,
http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
Let's turn to the main point, to whit Putin. He has ruthlessly and systematically concentrated power just as much as any Tzar, (to be fair, so have others - think Burlusconi, Chavez...)
What about Bush? OK, he hasn't been ruthless against his own citizens, only a subset of foreign citizens, but he has systematically concentrated power too.
That's not what I hear from friends at work who migrated from Russia to, on their words, "any country on the west that would accept me". They often told histories about how smart young people from Russia had to survive by doing "tricks" and acting "cute" to foreigners and big national companies at events such as Math/Chess/Programming competitions. A good and modern example of this situation is the malware scene.
It's all about need. Those eastern european kids really need to win these competitions. They can't afford to be "normal" because the job market for normal people was always a great mess at Russia.
The same kid from the west, with the same capabilities, will simply dismiss so much work just for some competition and say "ohhh, screw this, I tried". The number of kids from the west who actually need this kind of victory is extremely small and this group is mostly composed of empoverished folks and people with extremely serious issues related to socialization and self-esteem.
Being quick and dirty: "spoiled" (that's always relative - I'm considering a eastern european view) kids won't put that much effort into this kind of event. They don't really care about being named "Top Coder" as they're living an extremely confortable life at the moment and will achieve good job positions at the future just for beinga national with a good diploma. That's why the malware scene is really weak at the US: people have better options.
That's also bad for the west: if you were born at the US and attended a good university, you'll end up being a manager without needing much knowledge or even an IT-related graduation. That sucks because it means that our companies are being run by spoiled idiots instead of leading the race of improvement technology creation.
I hate you, SQL people. You seem to be fond of NULL but abandon it (like many other ideas) half way. And then make a living out of it.
Pervasive corruption was what did in the Soviet Union.
Stealing or cheating to achieve a group objective was
not considered a big thing there and such practices
were actually institutionalized.
This can be a bit problem for ex-Soviets abroad. ...as far as "West is best goes": where would the Soviets
be without stolen German techonology and some of the
corresponding scientists.
Although the same goes for the US though...
Russia certainly has the potential. They just have chosen
to squander much of it for the past few decades. When their
engineers cease fleeing to London to work as waiters, things
will probably shape up considerably.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You haven't met many geek girls have you?
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)