Microsoft and Intel need us

Why do transnational IT corporations support educational and charitable projects in Russia?

The main question for multinational companies selling information technology is: where to get new users? In essence, this same question faces the governments of countries that have not yet moved from the industrial phase of economic development to the information phase. Russia is among them - for example, the plan for creating an electronic government was announced only this year. As a result, there is a coincidence of interests of the state and IT companies operating in the domestic market. It’s time to talk about “public-private partnership” and “social responsibility of business.” True, the business is not ours, but American, but so what? Moreover, the state is ours.

So where does Microsoft get users? Paul Allen, the founder and one of the main owners of Microsoft, who has long since retired from the corporation, at the end of the last century undertook to finance from his personal funds the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project, which aims to search for extraterrestrial civilizations through computer analysis of the radio noise of the Universe. It would be possible for fun to assume - and journalists assumed - that the utilitarian meaning of the undertaking is to search for new sales markets for Windows. Bill Gates, who remains in business, is also investing heavily to increase the number of his users, but he does it a little differently. He personally promotes Microsoft's Unlimited Potential project (UP, the official translation is “World of Unlimited Possibilities”), which is, if not pure charity, then, in any case, a completely altruistic enterprise. As part of UP, Microsoft technologies and computers are distributed among those who are outside the IT market: children and old people, housewives from, as a rule, not the most developed, but developing countries. Including from Russia.

The term “developing country,” note, no longer means “underdeveloped.” In October, a Microsoft conference dedicated to the UP program in Central and Eastern Europe was held in Hungary. It reported the following data obtained by Economist Intelligence Unit analysts. Emerging markets, it turns out, account for 49% of global oil consumption today. Here, in emerging markets, 70% of the world's reserves of convertible currencies (forex) are concentrated. These markets account for more than 50% of global exports from advanced economies. The population of developing countries is growing by six million every month, and in developed countries - by only 300 thousand people. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, in the next three to five years, business is most promising in the following countries (in descending order): Russia, Turkey, Romania, Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary.

Successful work in these markets is the main resource that can be used by transnational IT companies, believes Nenad Pacek, vice president of the Economist Intelligence Unit. And the main problem associated with the use of this resource is “understanding local consumers.” In Russia, this understanding is achieved through the use of the most important local feature: the presence of a sufficient number of students inclined (and capable) of engineering creativity. The Imagine Cup, an international competition held annually by Microsoft for the applied application of the company's technologies, either wins or almost wins, having reached the final stage.

What programs like UP can provide to the national economy - with an adequate economic development policy - is best demonstrated by examples from recent economic history. Twenty years ago, Ireland and Greece were countries with the same standard of living, but now the standard of living of the Irish is twice that of the Greeks. In the 1960s, Japan was a poorer country than Argentina. The reason for the current situation in the global division of labor in Japan and Ireland is obvious - the bet on the high-tech economy. In Ireland, unlike Greece, there are factories that produce disks with Microsoft software and factories for the production of Intel processors. Although Japan has spread the fashion for Japanese cuisine throughout the world, unlike Argentina, it almost does not export agricultural products.

Intel does not build factories in Russia, but opens research centers, preferring to benefit from cooperation with local engineers. Microsoft, unfortunately, doesn't do this. It is easier for a company to hire a programmer who emigrated from Russia to work in the United States. Russian speech in Redmond, where the company is headquartered, is commonplace. To be fair, it must be said that Microsoft’s presence in Russia is valuable because it gives domestic programmers the opportunity to earn money on the domestic and global market for software developed for Windows.

In conclusion, about the joint Russian project announced last week between Intel, Microsoft (the company is participating in the project as part of the UP program) and the Russian non-profit foundation for supporting culture, science, education and healthcare “Volnoye Delo”. Russian schools will be supplied with Classmate PC - individual computers for children aged 6-12 years. These are specially designed laptops - in a well-protected case, without a hard drive that is sensitive to rough handling (it is replaced by flash memory circuits). So far, two thousand machines have been delivered to schools. The annual supply of 200 thousand pieces is planned. According to the general director of Volnoe Delo Tamara Rumyantseva, Classmate PC will not go to large cities, but exclusively to rural and district schools.

Andrey ANNENKOV, Budapest - Moscow