Thinking hard… in Prague.

Hi all!

Once upon a time long, long ago (in 1998 to be precise) some comrades and I, much in need of some rejuvenation on the basic ideas front, decided to take leave of the hustle and bustle of Moscow for a short while and get ourselves to a quiet place (so that nobody could disturb us) in a charming location. We needed to get away from it all, and to go back to basics – to discuss and hammer out blueprints for the future of our technologies, antivirus engines, how various antivirus subsystems effectively interact with one another, and other such fundamentally crucial topics.

So this is what we did…

First, we needed to get the venue right. What we were after was a place that was sufficiently comfortable (not some doss house with one bathroom per floor or something), but nothing more. We also needed a conference room that could seat six – that’s how many were heading out. Basically it needed to be reasonably economical, since back then we weren’t exactly flush with cash, to say the least. Thus: three-star it was to be.

We checked out various places in the Moscow region, but to no avail. So then we looked further afield. Eventually we decided that the most suitable place – out of those not too far from Moscow – was the Czech capital. So off we flew down there…

The trip turned out to be real success, with our managing to do there exactly what we planned – and the rest! It was in Prague where we developed the new architecture for our antivirus engine (which took on the working title ‘Prague’), which later became the prototype for the architecture of practically all our products. And as many of you will already know, the crucial thing in any complex software product is good architecture. If the architecture at the outset ain’t right, the products based on it ain’t ever gonna be right – no matter the budget or the experience and expertise of the team behind it.

So thank you Prague! Based on what we came up with there in 1998, we really took off in the mid-2000s (yes, patience is a virtue:). In terms of both product range and technical features we started to tear up the competition big time. Then, adding further and better cooperation with partners and retailers, we went on to tear it up more and more – first in Europe, then the US, Asia… everywhere! In 2006 we were the world’s No. 10 antivirus company; in 2009 we became No. 4; and today we’re creeping up behind the current No. 3 with our sights set firmly on catching it up and overtaking it completely (on home products we’ve already overtaken it!).

Turned out also that Prague is an ideal place not just for brainstorming new raison d’être paradigms, it’s also ideal for… practically everything else. Sipping Czech beer included, naturally :).

Which brings me in a roundabout way to this year. Fifteen years after our seminal trip here, another event recently took place here – an event of a similarly outside-the-box (and workplace) brainstorming nature. Around a hundred key developers, antivirus experts, business developers and marketing specialists converged for the second KL Innovation Summit here, to get creative and apply their grey matter to the hottest technological issues of the day.

Examples: How are we to properly fight new maliciousness? How can products be improved for that fight? What else can be seen on the product/technological horizon?…

Five days of isolation working exclusively on such questions gave rise to many an interesting new idea; for example, protecting cash points (since they also suffer from viruses!), preventing targeted attacks, incident management on corporate networks, how to develop further our MDM and VDI solutions, new breakthrough concepts for licensing and products’ joint operation, and more…

Everyone left Prague both perplexed and enlightened. Indeed, it was a fascinating get-together of finely tuned hi-end tech minds. Will definitely have to return for another such pow-wow :).

Plenty more photos are here and here.