Export Ban Drives Cuba To Non-US Analytics Software To Boost Tourism

dkatana writes with some crucial lines from an article at InformationWeek: Currently Cuba receives around 2.8 million visitors every year, half of them from Canada. Mintur, the Cuban Tourist Ministry, estimates that if Americans were free to travel to Cuba today, the number of visitors would increase by two million the first year. Last year the Cuban government was interested in getting its hands on analytics software to process the data generated by visitors on social networks. ... Because of the existing ban on American companies supplying technology to Cuba, Havana had to look somewhere else and found SocialVane, a small Spanish company on the island of Menorca, which has been working with the local tourist sector to analyze issues, trends, and potentials of the tourism industry.

Comments

Cold war is over

[danbob999]

Time to end that ridiculous embargo.

Re:Cold war is over

[rossdee]

I thought Obama already did.

Re:Cold war is over

[Adriax]

It should have gone away when the soviets did. It hasn't made any sense since the 80's.
Well, other than for a way for TV shows/movies to show off how rich someone is by offering the main character a cuban cigar.

Re:Cold war is over

[danbob999]

It requires congress approbation. I don't think it happened yet.

Re:Cold war is over

[FictionPimp]

Except that cubans are just as easy now to get as ever and are not very expensive. In fact, my cigar aficionados do not want the embargo to be stopped as it could cause a rise in prices and in counterfeits.

Re:Cold war is over

[halivar]

I like Cohiba's, I really do. But I think a lot of the obsession is just the forbidden fruit tasting sweeter. For my part, I prefer Sumatran leaf to Cuban.

Re:Cold war is over

[Anonymous Coward]

yes it is, but how is THIS newsworthy?

Re:Cold war is over

[khallow]

Those Brits aren't still alive now. And why would the relevance of US actions more than two centuries ago be relevant now? Is it ok to take peoples' stuff because the revolutionaries did it way back when?

Re:Cold war is over

[danbob999]

Have the Brits been compensated? No? Then it doesn't matter if they are dead. Their great great grand children might be alive and would gladly accept compensation, along with interest over 250 years of course. Are you saying we should just wait until these people die and then lift the embargo? War is war. If you are on the losing side chances are someone else will take ownership of your stuff if you flee to another country. And anyways people who owned stuff got stolen during the Cuban revolution no matter if they fled to the USA or stayed in Cuba.

Re:Cold war is over

[_Shad0w_]

I am reminded of the, possibly apocryphal, tale of when the Americans wanted to buy the land for the old American embassy in London off the land's owner. He refused but eventually offered a compromise: he said he would sell it to them if they returned the land they'd taken from his family in America. The owner is the Duke of Westminster. The land is most of the state of NY and Maine. They declined and opted for an extremely long lease instead.

Re:Cold war is over

[Karem Lore]

There is multiple levels to this. The bill to remove the embargo was entered back in February, but is reliant on removing Cuba from the state terrorism list. Obama approved the recommendation and then there is a 45-day review period. From mid-April that takes us through to June.

Here's hoping...

Re:Cold war is over

[danbob999]

This is another good one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

Re:Cold war is over

[WindBourne]

Really? What exactly did America steal from Britain back then?

Re:Cold war is over

[WindBourne]

how exactly did any of that land belong to the duke? Just because they declared it? Did the duke develop it? Or did he steal it from the native Americans here?

Keep in mind that many Mexicans claim that America stole their land as well. Yet, there were some 100 million Native Americans here, that New Spaniards/Mexicans kept fighting with, and trying to exterminate them. Finally, when USA came across the west, USA succeeded only because the Mexicans had been committing genocide for so long against the native Americans.

Re:Cold war is over

[danbob999]

Land, businesses, houses, horses, anything valuable at the time.

Re:Cold war is over

[khallow]

I pointed out that the two situations aren't analogous.

Have the Brits been compensated? No? Then it doesn't matter if they are dead. Their great great grand children might be alive and would gladly accept compensation, along with interest over 250 years of course.

Their great great grand children would have to show a claim on what has been taken away. Even if the claim is granted, those people might not be able to make a claim stick just because they can't demonstrate that they inherited the original claim. And if nobody can show that they should inherit the claim, then it doesn't get paid, even if the US agrees to pay compensation with interest.

This isn't a problem with someone who were actually alive for the last 250 years since they would be able to skip that whole mess.

Re:Cold war is over

[wannabgeek]

Oh, and UK is still rolling in wealth and riches it stole from India.

Re:Cold war is over

[WindBourne]

really? Show me some proof. NOBODY in England owned ANY LAND HERE.It belonged to the Native Americans.

But what businesses did we steal? And what horses? Did Americans go running through the home of redcoats stealing and murdering the same way that red coats had done to Americans?
Somehow, I doubt that we did.

More importantly, I suspect that you can not back up a SINGLE word of what you are claiming, except by claiming that stolen items belonged to your citizens. Kind of like when Germans claim gold fillings.

Re:Cold war is over

[danbob999]

I am pretty sure at least one person in England owned land and/or businesses in the USA.
However I was talking about people living in the USA, not in England, but forced to emigrate because of the war. All those loyalists didn't keep their stuff (try bringing a land with you to Canada or England). Just like Americans who fled Cuba during Casto's takeover left a lot of belongings behind.
Some would say they choose to leave, others would say they were forced. The result is the same. They left some belongings and the revolutionary Cubans/Americans took over.

Re:Cold war is over

[tehcyder]

NOBODY in England owned ANY LAND HERE.It belonged to the Native Americans.

That is quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen a Yank write.

Re:Cold war is over

[WindBourne]

Oh, I believe that the land 250 years ago absolutely belonged to the Native Americans. What Europe did to them (spain, portugal, england, france, germany,etc) was genocide.

Now since America was formed, that means that we yanks are responsible for what happened after that point. And I believe that we owe a lot fo them.
Even now, the GOP continues to steal from the native Americans, over and over.
It makes zero sense at 'giving' land back to them. However, it does make sense that we prevent any more theft, esp by our government. As it is, reservations here are their own gov/nation. If somebody goes onto a reservation, unless it is a federal offence, we have to treat it as a foreign nation. We actually have to send in extradition, etc. And that is how it should be. Likewise, we should be doing more to help them.

However, these are OUR issues to solve. But the idea that ANYBODY in Europe is owed land from here is a total fucking joke. Even the Mexican/New Spaniards, who were fighting the native Americans and committing genocide against them. But while the N.A. had many 10s' of millions here in mid 1800s, the Mexicans were less than 10,000 throughout the entire area that is consider USA.

Re:Cold war is over

[WindBourne]

How could anybody in England own land here, when it belonged to the native Americans?
You can not.
As to the business/buildings, we never took them away. In fact, it would go against everything that America stood for back then.
Now, Castro took over the businesses/posessions, etc.
Is that anything like what America did? Nope.
However, IMHO, that was foreign soil and it is NOT America's place to protect businesses and possessions on foreign soil. It IS our place to protect our citizens, even on foreign soil, but, that is a different issue. I do not recall Castro killing Americans, just grabbing the businesses.

Re:Cold war is over

[danbob999]

How could anybody in England own land here, when it belonged to the native Americans?

In 1776, it didn't. NYC, Boston, and other major cities weren't owned by native americans.

Vast quantity

[__aabppq7737]

There is so much consumer relationship software out there. Just google 'CRM software' and look at all the results

OMG

[JMJimmy]

The US isn't the centre* of the universe!?!

*Yes, I spelled it Canadian.

Re:OMG

[operagost]

Cuba seems to claim it is. They blame the inability to trade with the USA for all their ills. I'm not sure why (nearly) the rest of the world can't satisfy their needs, or why they would want to trade with a nation they disagree with ideologically, but this kind of illogical sentiment is not unique (see: Venezuela).

Re:OMG

[lazarus]

If you are caught trading with Cuba in goods that are the product of an American company (HP, Dell, Ford, etc etc), even if you are not located in the US the parent company is (were) subject to stiff fines and your license to sell said products would almost certainly be revoked. So, for example, if a Canadian-based reseller made the mistake of selling an HP computer to a Cuban company, that reseller may find their HP reseller status revoked. Big risk.

This is American reach you see. That is why it hurts so much.

Re:OMG

[JMJimmy]

Cuba seems to claim it is. They blame the inability to trade with the USA for all their ills. I'm not sure why (nearly) the rest of the world can't satisfy their needs, or why they would want to trade with a nation they disagree with ideologically, but this kind of illogical sentiment is not unique (see: Venezuela).

"Othering" is just a staple of politics regardless of any realities.

Re:OMG

[WindBourne]

You do not have to look at Venezuela. I would say that the old GOP would never have anything to do with Communist China. Now, the new GOP have more in common with them, and love to move companies there, even though they have no legal footing afterwards.

Re:OMG

[danbob999]

I'm not sure why (nearly) the rest of the world can't satisfy their needs

Because of this:

and in 1996 by the Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act (known as the Helms–Burton Act) which penalizes foreign companies that do business in Cuba by preventing them from doing business in the U.S.

Re:OMG

[Livius]

My guess is because he knows how to use a dictionary. Such as the Oxford English Dictionary.

Re:OMG

[tehcyder]

Cuba seems to claim it is. They blame the inability to trade with the USA for all their ills. I'm not sure why (nearly) the rest of the world can't satisfy their needs, or why they would want to trade with a nation they disagree with ideologically, but this kind of illogical sentiment is not unique (see: Venezuela).

Yes, it's not as though the USA is the world's main economic and military superpower and has worldwide influence or anything.

That stuff take a while to forget

[RivenAleem]

America should really get their act together and try to patch things up with Cuba sooner rather than later. When a larger country pisses all over their small island neighbours for decades, the small guys have a habit of holding a grudge.

Disclaimer: I'm Irish.

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[Grishnakh]

That's a little different. AFAIK, the US never had a bunch of rich people go and seize all the prime real estate there, use it for farming and send all the profits to the US, then go through a drought and send all the food to the US leaving Cubans to starve to death (literally), and then send in paramilitary forces to beat up on the general population and get into an actual shooting war with them. Ireland has every right to be pissed at England; England's actions were absolutely despicable. Have they ever even apologized for all that?

As I understand it, our history with Cuba is rather different, and mostly non-violent. US corporations owned a bunch of prime farming land, Casto got together a bunch of revolutionaries and seized control of the island, and created a new government. They nationalized a bunch of things, including all those US-owned farms. The US government was pissed about that because it works for the corporations, so they spewed a bunch of hot air. They eventually decided to help out some counter-revolutionaries in their bid to retake the island, but at the last minute the US forces decided to not show up ("Bay of Pigs"), so the counter-revolutionaries lost quickly. Ever since then, the US has only had a big embargo in place, though of course they only have so much power since some other countries ignore this embargo.

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[operagost]

The US government was pissed about that because it works for the corporations

You were OK up to this point. Cuba didn't just nationalize those holdings, they seized them-- no compensation. Whether or not the corporations were receiving special treatment, it's a government's responsibility to protect their citizens' right to property, so it wasn't a stretch to demand compensation. Remember, many private citizens also lost their properties.

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a little different. AFAIK, the US never had a bunch of rich people go and seize all the prime real estate there, use it for farming and send all the profits to the US, then go through a drought and send all the food to the US leaving Cubans to starve to death (literally), and then send in paramilitary forces to beat up on the general population and get into an actual shooting war with them. Ireland has every right to be pissed at England; England's actions were absolutely despicable. Have they ever even apologized for all that?

England? Yes. Tony Blair in 1997. The Queen wasn't quite as outright about it though.

Regarding the US treatment of Cuba...you may not want to admit, but some pretty shitty things did happen in Cuba, and in the rest of the Caribbean, at the behest of the US government. Marines were deployed rather frequently, and while you can say they were also fighting some nasty folks, that doesn't mean they didn't commit any abuses.

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[Grishnakh]

Whether or not the corporations were receiving special treatment, it's a government's responsibility to protect their citizens' right to property, so it wasn't a stretch to demand compensation.

You can demand all you want, but when you own property in a *foreign nation*, which has different laws, you can't expect your demands to necessarily be met. If you're not a citizen of a foreign nation, you have zero rights there. A foreign government has every right to seize foreign(to them)-owned property; they make the laws, so if they write the laws to that effect, that gives them the right.

Remember, many private citizens also lost their properties.

Were they Cuban citizens? No? Too bad. That's the risk you take buying property in a foreign nation.

The bottom line is you have no rights in a foreign country besides whatever their laws say. If a new government takes over and changes the laws there, your property claims are subject to those new laws, and may not go well.

So, if you want to own land and not worry much about it being seized or lost through some crazy antics, make sure to buy that land in a country with an extremely stable government where you don't have to worry much about it being taken over by a bunch of leftists, not some small island nation where the government isn't very stable. It also helps a lot to simply buy land in your own country, and not in foreign countries.

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[Grishnakh]

you may not want to admit, but some pretty shitty things did happen in Cuba, and in the rest of the Caribbean, at the behest of the US government.

I'm only talking about Cuba here, not the rest of the Caribbean. Similarly, England's actions in Ireland were of no concern to people in France, even though it's a short distance away.

Anyway, I just related the textbook version; I wasn't aware of any US military deployments in Cuba (besides them leasing the Guantanamo Bay facility). If you'd like to fill in some details I missed, feel free.

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[gstoddart]

There's more to it than that. Far more.

Starting in 1901 when the US jammed the Platt Amendment into the Cuiban Constitution which America said entitles them to keep a naval base in Cuba (that's what Guantanamo is).

Carrying forward, the US was a backer of Batista, who was a petty little thug who did things like:

Back in power, Batista suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike. He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations, and presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans.[5] Batista's increasingly corrupt and repressive government then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships with the American mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana, and with large multinational American corporations that had invested considerable amounts of money in Cuba.[5][6] To quell the growing discontent amongst the populaceâ"which was subsequently displayed through frequent student riots and demonstrationsâ"Batista established tighter censorship of the media, while also utilizing his anti-Communist secret police to carry out wide-scale violence, torture and public executions; ultimately killing anywhere from 1,000 to 20,000 people.[7][8] For several years until 1959, the Batista government received financial, military, and logistical support from the United States.[9]

But, as always happens, he was a thug and a dictator but friendly to US business interests. So America liked him.

Basically the Cubans were poor and starving under a terrible government who cared more about US interests than its own citizens.

The American Mafia is largely whose stuff was nationalized:

In the 1950s, Havana served as "a hedonistic playground for the world's elite", producing sizable gambling, prostitution and drug profits for American Mafiosos, corrupt law-enforcement officials, and their politically elected cronies.[38] In fact, drugs, be it marijuana or cocaine, were so plentiful at the time that one American magazine in 1950 proclaimed "Narcotics are hardly more difficult to obtain in Cuba than a shot of rum. And only slightly more expensive."[38]

In a bid to profit from such an environment, Batista established lasting relationships with organized crime, notably with American mobsters Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, and under his rule Havana became known as "the Latin Las Vegas."[39] Batista and Lansky formed a friendship and business relationship that flourished for a decade. During a stay at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York in the late 1940s, it was mutually agreed that, in return for kickbacks, Batista would give Lansky and the Mafia control of Havana's racetracks and casinos.[40]

So, let's not pretend that Cuba wasn't already under a corrupt dictatorship under which the citizens suffered hugely.

I'm not defending everything Castro did, but everyone likes to conveniently the history of American supported dictators allowing American organized crime to treat the nation as their own private playground.

Batista and the crooks really needed to go. And I'm afraid I have little sympathy for them.

Americans like to act like Castro overthrew a benign government, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Don't just look at the last 50 years, look at the last 100.

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[gstoddart]

Anyway, I just related the textbook version; I wasn't aware of any US military deployments in Cuba (besides them leasing the Guantanamo Bay facility)

Leasing? America is NOT "leasing" Guantanamo in any legitimate use of that word.

America jammed the Platt Amendment into Cuba's Constitution at the end of a war, which unilaterally said "we get to keep a navy base here" ... in effect "we own joo, bitches".

Cuba has never cashed the checks, has repeatedly said they don't consent to Guantanamo, and don't want the Americans there.

Guantanamo is basically a forcible military presence in a foreign country.

It sure as fuck isn't 'leased' in any honest meaning of 'lease'.

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't that simple, at the very beginning Castro only nationalized the really big farms (max cap was 3,333 acres or 13 km) and assured full compensation, but the US cut Cuba's sugar access to the US market, threatening to severely cripple the Cuban economy (that was virtually their only export of worth; other products like coffee and tobacco were relatively small in comparison), so Cuba retaliated back with more nationalization while the US started destabilization policies (these days we call it terrorism activities) so from that point on, their relationship went in a downward spiral that ended in the bay of pig invasion and the missile crisis.

As for your version of the history, basically US took control of Cuba after the last independence war against the Spanish war (1895-1898), where US intervened after the Maine episode. Between 1898 and 1902, the US basically plundered the entire country and bought at rebate prices all Spanish properties along the most important main infrastructure (including power and railroads) as well as most of the lands.

Only after all that plundered, they agreed to allow an independent government in Cuba after the forceful imposition of the Platt amendment that turned Cuba basically into a vassal state of the US. The Platt amendment was repealed 30 years latter after 4 or 5 military interventions and securing "permanent treaties" that virtually amounted to the same (like the one that allows US control over the Guantanamo base) with corrupt puppet governments (and tyrants) notorious for the corruption and violence against common cubans.

Not exactly my definition of "non-violence"

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[Grishnakh]

I see. I really didn't understand all the pre-Castro history, I was just starting with Castro's revolution.

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[Grishnakh]

I realize that England is not an independent nation, however England during the early 1900s was absolutely in control of the UK and its activities overseas, and things aren't much different these days. You will not convince me that the Welsh or Channel Islanders had any significant hand in what happened in Ireland or anywhere else.

I never said the US was always nice to everyone around the world, I was just pointing out that (at least since Castro took over in the 50s), the US didn't have a record of military involvement in Cuba.

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[RivenAleem]

The Queen, in a visit to Ireland a couple of years back did say "We feel there are some things we could have done differently (pause) or not at all"

That is probably as close to an apology as we are going to get.

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[tehcyder]

You seem to have omitted the bit about Batista and the Mafia running Cuba as a dictatorship on the US's behalf.

Re:That stuff take a while to forget

[Grishnakh]

Yeah, as I said to someone else here, I basically started right when Castro took over.

"Someone can't buy thing, has to buy other thing"

[Anonymous Coward]

STUFF THAT MATTERS!

And Cuba will be fucked ...

[gstoddart]

the Cuban Tourist Ministry, estimates that if Americans were free to travel to Cuba today, the number of visitors would increase by two million the first year

I've been to Cuba 5 times in the last 8 years or so, and while I really like Cuba and the Cubans, I've also seen a considerable decline over that time.

The quality of the service has gone down. The resort staff are much less interested in good service and are now expecting tips. They doubled the size of the airport, but their internal stuff couldn't scale, so there can be days where it takes hours to check in for your flight.

Cuba has a lot of older resorts. It's still a really poor country with some shady infrastructure.

If you start throwing millions of Americans into that mix, I firmly believe the systems won't be able to handle it.

The last two times I was there the airport devolved into madness and chaos, because they had more passengers and aircraft than they could handle.

And there's going to be a lot of disappointed Americans as they discover that the effects of the embargo is a country which is impoverished and can't give them the kind of experience they want.

Honestly, for me, Florida is becoming more attractive than Cuba. The same weather, all the first world amenities, and none of the tourist stomach ailments.

I just don't think Cuba will weather a sudden influx of more tourists who are expecting first world luxuries. Cuba is beautiful and charming, but it's also small and poor.

Re:And Cuba will be fucked ...

[rubycodez]

Nonsense.

influx of money means the "system" of which you speak will grow.

plenty of other third world countries prove the point

Re:And Cuba will be fucked ...

[Dzimas]

Your perspective is completely wrong. Cuba isn't Disneyland, it's a country with a population of over 11 million people. Tourism is currently a significant source of income for many on the island, and even professionals with university educations are drawn to the resorts out of necessity - I know an air traffic controller who works full-time in Varadero and conducts private tours on the side to earn much needed money. He's one of the lucky ones.

Cuba needs industry and business. The country introduced reforms a few years ago to encourage small private enterprises, but access to capital and markets has kept people from being able to take advantage of those changes. As it stands, there is foreign oil investment from companies like China's Greatwall and Canada's Sherritt, but the nation's basic infrastructure is in crisis; a lot of the infrastructure was obviously built under the guidance of Soviet engineers -- concrete apartment buildings dot the outskirts of Havana that are familiar to anyone who has visited Vilnius or St Petersburg. The electrical poles are a classic Soviet concrete design, as are the 1970s and 1980s era bus shelters. Even shop doors cause me to do a double take, because they're right out of my 1990 memories from the Baltic states.

But anyway, I digress. What Cubans need is access to capital and encouragement to start small diversified businesses that extend the economy beyond rum, cigars and tacky booze holiday tourism. They also need access to the US market in a manner that isn't exploitative (American companies that see the island as a cheap labour source for large manufacturing facilities would not be beneficial, because the wealth would flow out of the country, as an example).

Re:And Cuba will be fucked ...

[gstoddart]

If you think an influx of money will magically fix a country which has a limited infrastructure and widespread poverty you're foolish and naive.

Maybe in the long run it will improve things.

In the short run I predict it will create a shitstorm which will be to the detriment of the Cubans.

You can't go from being embargoed to not embargoed overnight and expect that to work well at all. It simply doesn't work that way.

Until they can build up their infrastructure, and make some systemic changes to their economy, a sudden influx of Americans looking for McDonald's and five star resorts will not have good outcomes for Cuba.

I think it's long overdue to get rid of the embargo, but there's no way in hell I believe opening the floodgates to American tourists will have anything but a disruptive and negative effect for the immediate future.

Re:And Cuba will be fucked ...

[gstoddart]

Yes, Cuba does need business and capital, it does need to expand its economy, it does need better infrastructure, and the unfinished/rough cinderblock construction is everywhere.

They have lots of poverty, and lots of problems. Their internal transportation is a mess.

It's also true that I've met many educated people working on resorts because they could make far more money.

I am not disagreeing with a single thing you said.

What I am saying is Cuba's tourism industry is already stretched beyond what it can handle, and is in desperate need of some re-vamping and improving ... but that suddenly bringing in a few million extra tourists will not immediately fix these problems, but will exaggerate them.

If you just unleash the economic chaos on them and hope everything will sort itself out, you'll do a lot of damage to them. And, as you say, if that change is exploitative it will harm them even further.

I'm not saying this isn't a sign of improvement for Cuba. But I also don't think suddenly saying "OK, two more million tourists, deal with it" will work ... because I already know for a fact that their tourist industry is straining at the seams.

In the short term, this has the potential to be more harmful than beneficial, because you can't just go full steam ahead and expect that to ramp up like it would be in a first world country.

Re:And Cuba will be fucked ...

[danbob999]

False problem. If having 2 millions more tourists is bad for Cuba, then they could just double the price of their resorts, make more money, and discourage many tourists from going there. Supply and demand.

Re:And Cuba will be fucked ...

[rubycodez]

I've watched it happen in countries where my relatives live, over the past 40+ years.

You are the ignorant fool, probably young too

Re:lets forgive Tiefs and Killaz, cuban mafia welc

[rubycodez]

did you know Miami based terrorist groups have successfully carried out terrorist attacks against Cuba? Look it up. Who is harboring terrorists again?

Re:"Someone can't buy thing, has to buy other thin

[rubycodez]

No. "Embargo Proves Pointless" is the point

Re:Or maybe the Cubans just bought what they need

[PPH]

This.

It's actually news when a US interest loses a sale to a foreigner? Oh Noes! There must be something amiss. Some regulation standing in the way. Because otherwise this could never happen.

Never mind that it's a Spanish (speaking) company, which probably fits its Cuban user's needs quite well. It's quite possible they might have won the sale even in the absence of an embargo.

Cuba's Charm

[0xG]

Unfortunately will be lost if Americans are allowed to swarm the place, bringing 7-11s, Motel6s, McDonalds and Coke, etc.

*Had* to look elsewhere? Or just... did?

[wonkey_monkey]

Because of the existing ban on American companies supplying technology to Cuba, Havana had to look somewhere else

Had to? Because otherwise there couldn't be possibly be any reason to look anywhere other than the USA for high quality software? Sheesh.

You do know it's okay not to be "number one!" at everything, right?