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…

On the news of late I’ve been seeing an awful lot of reports about very woeful wintery weather all around the world. In Moscow they’ve had the heaviest snowfall in something like centuries, and Northeastern USA also got a fair overdose of the pretty white precipitation. I start thinking that it’s all just signals warning of impending doom caused by global warming. But then, who wouldn’t – bar ostriches – after all the freak snow and then looking at the results of ice drillings in Antarctica at the Vostock Station? :( But I digress…

So it seems that everyone from New York, to York, to Yakutsk is suffering big time with loads of weary winteriness. So that leaves me + cohorts + partners feeling… well, a little bit guilt-stricken, to say the least. Why? Because we’re all on the sun drenched, snow-free, profoundly picturesque Yucatán Peninsula.

More: Why conferencing in paradise?…

It’s been little more than a year since the release of the previous version of our corporate product (Endpoint Security 8), but we’ve already rolled out a new (need I say it – much improved) one. Yesterday, as per tradition in New York, we had our global launch of Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business (KESB) – a nifty bit of software kit in which all sorts of new stuff comes together – from a flock of new functionality to a new name and a new product line.

This post gives you a peak at all these newbie bits and bobs featured in KESB. But first, as a bit of background to make all the new stuff a little easier to get your head round (I hope), let me give you a historic overview what’s gone on in the past and which has brought us to this year’s culmination: KESB.

More: In the beginning there was antivirus…

Phew. A three-week US tour behind us. It’s been tough. It’s been stamina hammering. But it’s been fun. Shame to be leaving really, but commitments elsewhere beckon. We do leave with a ton of strong impressions and good memories though – and loads of pics. In all we managed to cram a heck of a lot into the allotted time, but made sure we enjoyed ourselves too – stopping to smell the roses and see the sights when we could. Now for the same old “suitcase – taxi – airport…”. Where we’re off to next I’ll tell you later on. But it sure looks like we’re in for a total change of landscape.

Our last day, in New York, turned out to be a pleasantly sassy, super-fly summation: a peachy press conference attended by folks from all over the world – including star participant Fernando Alonso! He’s playing the lead role in the new clip for our Safeguarding Me campaign (if you only knew how we had to guard his special “tomita” (the little Japanese talisman in the vid) during shooting!). Have a look for yourself:

More: Super Fly finale on the 40th floor…

More: Cyber-Conferences (and a Cyberian-Cyber-Village). . .