I once wondered why golf isn’t popular in Russia. Or rugby or cricket, for that matter. Why are these sports – played by millions and watched by billions – hardly noticeable in Russia?

After mulling it over a short while I think I came up with the answer, and it’s simple! Russia’s got winter going on for half the year. It would be daft looking for small white balls in the (white) snow. I remember playing ice hockey when I was young and very often the puck would end up in a snowdrift. We spent more time looking for errant pucks than playing the game. But that’s ice hockey. How can you have ice hockey with no ice/snow? As for other small-ball sports you can generally play in the street of yard – no. They just don’t suit Russia, so they never really took off.

Meanwhile in India!…

Snow to many an Indian is pretty exotic – only seen on the TV in a news report or film. It’s just something that isn’t thought about, like golf in Russia. So snow there doesn’t hinder ball games much, so ball games are mega popular. But you rarely see lads getting together for a kick-about of soccer in India like you do practically the world over. No, instead they all play the exotic (and not only to Russians) game of cricket. Yep, for cricket here is a lot more popular than football! Which has to be a fairly unique state of affairs for any country… So it’s only logical that the very best and most popular (ever!) Indian professional cricket player – Sachin Tendulkar – is referred to as the ‘God of Cricket’ here.

Everywhere the man goes there are cries of “Sachin! Sachin!”, with folks clapping and jumping about and taking as many pics as poss with their gadgets.

I saw the commotion he causes last week in the flesh while in Mumbai. Sachin is a long-time KL friend and partner, and he’s also been our ‘brand ambassador’ in India and nearby countries for several years already.

I was in India for the launch of the new version of KIS 2015, and also of our new education program to protect children from cybercrime in Indian schools. Of course there was much of the usual – presentations, interviews, solo and group photos… only this time things were just a little different due to the larger-than-life presence of the country’s No. 1 megastar showstopper! It was a lot of fun though. Don’t know how he manages it on a daily basis with all that frenzied attention.

Despite working with him for several years already it was the first time I’d met him in person, and the honor and pleasure were all mine. I particularly liked the bit when we kicked back and enjoyed a wonderful meal.

Read on: pix, pix, pix…

We have a tradition at KL where mid-July each year we throw a company birthday bash. Last Friday it was our 17^th, leaving us just one more year before we become fully adult! So a youthful theme was what we were after this year – our final year of innocent adolescence…

…The organization of this year’s festivities however were truly adult in nature. Everything went smoothly and to plan. In fact every year these summer blowouts just get better and better. But I for the life of me can’t imagine how this year’s is going to be improved on. But I say that on every birthday. True to tradition once again the organizers went one better :).

I guess a sweater, jumper or sweatshirt on the singer just wouldn’t have been right :)

Read on: So what stuck in my mind most of all?…

Now, for any Moscow drivers who were held up one recent sunny afternoon by an army of retro-mobiles slowly edging along Leningradsky Shosse and Prospect – SORRY! It was us, KL, putting on some old-school Ritz for our highly valued partners from all over Western Europe.

The smiles are contagious…

‘State Duma’ [Parliament]

Hi folks!

Luckily, I dropped by our CeBIT stand this year in Hannover, where I happened to meet a very important VIP. I guess the pic will do the talking here…

My tie-wearing rule: minister level and up. That’ll be a check, then

Truly an honor, madam chancellor

Cybersecurity + uniformed security

Ah, that was easy. Nothing more I feel I need tell you about this exhibition…

Well… actually, just one thing. I have to admit again that CeBIT continues to become more and more boring. It’s still a huge exhibition and still a must-be-there for all IT companies worth their salt operating in Europe (especially Germany). But, alas, it’s not quite the same in terms of size and energy as it was in the past. Only two companies from the AV industry were there besides KL. Between the years 2000 and 2005 there was always at least a dozen AVers. Sometimes all in our pavilion at once!

That’s all folks! Have a nice day!

Hi folks!

Some time in early February every year we put on three of our most important events – all in one place, one after the other, back to back:

• A conference for IT analysts;
• Our North American Partner Conference;
• The Security Analyst Summit (SAS) – the annual pow-wow bringing together top security experts from around the globe.

This year the triathlon lasted a week and a half. Non-stop presentations, discussions, negotiations and other meetings. The all-in-one-place idea is to avoid excessive globetrotting by the hundreds who attend. So it’s like three vultures (see below) with one stone. That’s all very well, but such an Ironman multi-conference… well, it’s pretty intense keeping it up that long. Mercifully, three perennial lifesavers here make up for that: beautiful turquoise sea, clear blue sky, and perfect beaches. Phew.

Read on: Paradisiacal funky stuff…

From time to time I tend to share some geo-politico-economic observations from my travels. Here’s one of those times…

There’s this island in the Atlantic – an island called Ireland. There aren’t a lot of useful things to extract out of the ground there, the climate’s nothing to write home about, and its location is quite a bit out of the way – let’s say… Euro-peripheral. And every now and again it suffers from a serious alien financial crisis.

So what’s a country with hardly the best physique in the gym to do? Think – that’s what!

And that’s just what they did…

They thought about – and followed through with – making the country as attractive as possible to foreign investors and companies by creating the most comfortable business environment possible. They even created a special governmental agency for this purpose – IDA Ireland, made up of an army of enthusiastic civil servants whose sole task is to promote their country. And they’ve done rather well so far: there are around a thousand foreign companies located here, and that includes many IT ones. Google’s here, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, and many others. In fact everyone’s here! Now Facebook too – lured here by Bono (just don’t mention ‘philanthropy’ and ‘offshore tax residency’ in the same sentence:).

The keen-as-mustard Ireland promotion agency reminds me of a similar agency in Singapore, which has helped enormously the country’s strategy of industrialization and modernization to develop the economy. Btw, Ireland’s Ryanair is the second largest airline in Europe (after Lufthansa) – just another example of this country’s low-key powerhouse status. There’s more to Ireland than long-pour Guinness meets the eye.

So what was I doing in Ireland? I was here for a local IT posse get-together – this time an exhibition-conference called Web Summit: more than 600 (!) startups of varying caliber and nationality, all in a small and tightly packed exhibition center. The startups show themselves off and get acquainted with neighbors and investors, while big companies have a gander at all the fresh innovative ideas. All good, exciting, interesting, worthwhile and proper!

Read more: more silicon island…

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…

More: Prague brainstorm, 15 years later…

Yep, we’ve reached the age of consent folks! No more little 15, just sweet 16 :).

As per tradition, we celebrated our birthday in style – for the 15^th time (no typo – see the ‘P.S.’ below). KLers from all over the globe descended on a spot in the countryside to the north of Moscow last Friday – which thankfully was a beautiful sunny day (not like last year’s washout:).

Another year, another beer

More: I’ll let the pix do the talking…

A little while back we had the General Secretary of Interpol, Ronald Noble, visit us in Moscow. He really is quite a guy. He’s been awarded the French Legion of Honor, is a professor of the New York University School of Law, and – surprise, surprise! – is an honorary professor of the Urals State Legal Academy (if you believe the Russian Wikipedia page on him:). Anyway, it’s now my turn to pay him a combined business and social call…

Lyon in France houses the head office of Interpol. When I asked “Can I take photographs?”, I was delighted by the answer, “whatever and wherever you like”.

More: So I took some photographs…

Last night in London this year’s SC Awards ceremony took place.

The SC Awards are a bit like the Oscars for European IT-Sec, and I normally find myself in attendance most years to pick up an award, for example – last April. But last night was the first time we received two of the most prestigious London Oscars in one night. Hurray!

And they’re not just any old awards:

• Information Security Vendor of the Year; and
• Information Security Team of the Year (for our GReAT (Global Research and Analysis) team.

Nice. Thank you to my agent, Mum, Dad, cat, God, etc., etc.; but mainly – thanks to the KLers who made this all poss :).

More: A well-deserved drink or three…