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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.'"
The Soviets probably got around 90% of their technology through corporate theft and spying. It's not like they could have come up with something innovative. There at the end there was so much brain drain, or so little incentive, that some government agency was caught with stolen plans for a US washing machine.