Monthly Archives: July 2026

A stitch in time saves… 29!

Privyet, droogs!

Yes – we’ve been stitching time and saving the world a full 29 years already! And last Friday we celebrated those 29 years in typically unrestrained, loud, colorful, and rock & rollicking style. Also typical: the venue – the only one in the Moscow Region that can fit us all in: the Zavidovo resort complex:

Yet another typical: the weather didn’t cooperate right away…

Read on…

A Bridge Not Too Far!

On our Irkutsk–Yakutsk–Magadan–Yakutsk winter road-trip we finally rolled into civilization and were fast approaching Yakutsk Airport, from where we’d soon have the good fortune to be heading home. But before the triumphant finale to our adventures, we decided to investigate a topic that’s been pertinent to the locals here since, like, forever: connecting the two banks of the Lena River to give Yakutsk – a city of almost 400,000 – year-round access to the “mainland”. And our investigations hit upon some very positive news: construction of the Lena Bridge has finally begun! Hurray!

But first things first…

Read on…

Partners – nice to see you; here in sunny Peru!

Hola folks!

Lima oceanside walkies – done; next up – our LatAm partner conference, with 220 guests, from 19 countries.

So. What? Why?!…

It’ all rather straightforward really. Practically any mass-market product is sold not directly but through retail chains, distributors, resellers, and so on. Well – maybe with the exception of online sales of various kinds of software, and even then you need a partner with an online platform (by no means every software company can afford to develop and maintain its own online storefronts). It’s the same in our case. While online sales happen with minimal partner involvement, everything from boxed product (yes – that’s still a thing) on upward – especially with corporate products that call for training, deployment, and support – simply can’t get by without a partner network.

And to make that network run more effectively, you need regular meetups, conferences, seminars on new products and technologies, and all sorts of other things like that. And that’s exactly what we do – every year we put on several regional partner get-togethers plus one global one; and we’ve been at it since all the way back in 1999! We even kept to the yearly partner meet-ups schedule through covid in 2020!

Fast-forward to 2026, and this time the capital of Peru was chosen as the venue for our LatAm conference: two days presenting our new products, technologies, and services, talking through the partner program, and so on. Naturally, I got up and spoke too:

What did I talk about?… ->

Read on…

In the Peruvian capital – an urban coastal ramble.

Cities come in all shapes and sizes. There are the standout urban projects – like the island-city-state of Singapore. There are megacities that really lucked out with phenomenal natural beauty all around them – Rio de Janeiro, for instance. There are imperial capitals – St. Petersburg, say, or Beijing. And there are plenty of cities with some special “thing” all of their own – I once even drew up my own Top-20 of the very best cities (in my strictly personal, not-always-objective opinion); and at one point I came up with my own Top-100 most beautiful places in the world list, too.

Oh – I got carried away there with my countries and cities and various lists. Now, where was I? Ah, yes: I was building up to introducing Peru’s capital, Lima (here). And it turns out that, though it’s not quite a “megacity” that lucked out with phenomenal natural beauty all around it, it did still luck out. And that’s mainly because it sits high up on the Pacific Ocean shore; and the resultant views are oh-my-gorgeous…

Read on…

Four days to Yakutsk Airport.

Leaving Zyryanka, it struck me: the nearest airport with regular flights to the capital of our vast and boundless homeland is a full four days away by car! Well, if you really push it and don’t sleep at night, you could manage it in a couple of days. But if the rule is daytime = driving, and nighttime = sleeping, there’s no way it comes out to less than four. Whether to Magadan or to Yakutsk, it’s still a full four days: Zyryanka > Sasyr (day one), Sasyr > Ust-Nera (day two), and then we’re exactly halfway along the R-504 Kolyma Highway, with about a thousand kilometers either way = another two days on the road.

Not that we were complaining! After all, we chose this bonkers route ourselves, and it’s not as if it was our first time on this or a similar winter-wonderland road-trip adventures…

Read on…