NOTES, COMMENT AND BUZZ FROM EUGENE KASPERSKY – OFFICIAL BLOG
June 25, 2024
After all the good fun with the kids at Japan’s Disneyland and TeamLab, it was time to turn my attention to work. And that meant the Interop 24 IT exhibition, meetings with business partners, plus several interviews with the press…
I also needed to drop by our Tokyo office to lift the spirits of the team there given the ongoing geopolitical turbulence ->
May 30, 2024
With conference season still in full-swing, I’ve been busier than a bee of late. Just recently I only had two days at home and it was back on the road again. This time though it was a domestic business trip – albeit it a thoroughly important one …
It was for CIPR in the city of Nizhny Novgorod. CIPR?…
CIPR is a transliteration from the Russian ЦИПР, which stands for “Digital Industry of Industrial Russia”. That was a direct translation that came out clumsy in English (curiously due to the fact that there are two words for industry/industrial in Russian; only one in English:), but it’s now taken on the more modern and pertinent (in terms of content), and appropriate (in terms of English language sense) name of “Digitalization of Industrial Russia”.
CIPR: conference, exhibition, presentations, speeches, agreement signings, meets, greets, handshakes, chats. Never dull, and always a pleasure (it takes place yearly in Nizhny Novgorod – Russia’s sixth-largest city, 500km east of Moscow) ->
That fine historical building is where the talks and panel discussions take place, while the exhibition – needing a bit more room – is in the large, modern hangar-like building next door. That’s where we head first…
March 5, 2024
Hola amigos!
From Innsbruck, off we flew (with our top awards in our luggage) to Barcelona. Once there, we headed on over to the vast Fira Barcelona venue (awards in hand!) for a monster of an exhibition-conference. And the monster was of course Mobile World Congress (MWC). As usual, everyone who’s anyone in the mobile communications/IT world was there, and it was rammed, noisy and fun! ->
I call it a monster due to its size: like a monster truck, it’s gigantic. It’s also a survivor. For it’s been around since practically year-dot when it comes to large mobile/IT exhibitions-conferences, and hasn’t fallen by the wayside like some of its former “colleagues” like the once-similarly massive CeBIT or COMDEX. MWC has managed to keep up with the times, modernize and diversify; or, to put it simpler – it just became all the more shiny and super-interesting to appeal to a broader audience. ¡Respeto!
Our romance with MWC goes way back – to when it was still known as 3GSM (it became MWC in 2008). Alas, I don’t have much to show for it today – since I’d never heard of “blogging” in the early 2000s. My earliest published bits and pieces hail back to 2010 and 2011 (just a few pics on Kaspersky Club (Google Translate text only)). Sure, MWC’s had it’s bad patches (like in 2021), but it’s bounced back (and gotten bigger and cooler and flashier every year). ¡Mucho respeto!
And here we were again ->
June 9, 2023
Hi folks!
We’ve never been busier, and that goes for the whole of the fateful 2022 and also the first half of this year. Busy as bees we are. And it’s the same for me personally as well as the Kompany: business trips almost back-to-back, with “breathers” in-between back home turning into busy workdays too. But it is what it is, and who am I to complain?…
As per the eternal tradition at K though – in addition to working hard we also play hard. Last Friday we had the annual Kiddies Day at HQ, and soon – in July – we’ll be having our annual K-Birthday all-dayer, back after last year’s omission. While the other day there was some more “play” for me, though I’d hardly call it hard. Still just as fun…
I was in Nizhny Novgorod – on business, of course, but I managed to fit in the mandatory walkabout downtown – specifically, along the city’s famed pedestrianized Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street – the perfect spot stretch for strolling, eating, drinking, chilling, and assorted other (legal) pastiming…
It seems angels are a thing of late, not only in Belarus but here too!
October 17, 2022
Every fall – since 1981! – GITEX (= Gulf IT Exhibition) takes place in Dubai. This is a reasonably comfortable time of year in the Middle East for an event such as this. It’s not so hot – just +35-38°C (!), unlike the summers with +50°C. You can even step outside and not get roasted on your way to, for example, the exhibition…
Attending exhibitions and conferences, meeting partners and customers, chatting with industry colleagues, and giving speeches and interviews – it’s all a part of my job description. It can be exhausting, but that doesn’t make it any less necessary in the fight against cyber-evil in general, and in helping advance our projects, technologies and products in particular (which dovetails back into the overall fight against cyber-evil). I even have a tag on my blog for such events all over the world – pictures from exhibition. And yes, if you know your 70s prog rock, I did indeed ~get the name from that album ).
// Btw – the cherry on the icing on the cake in terms of visual OMG-ness on this trip to Dubai comes at the end of this post. So bear with me – and no looking ahead!…
July 16, 2022
The other week I found myself at Innoprom-2022 – the industrial exhibition in Yekaterinburg. I’d been twice before – in 2017 and 2021 – and, come this year, I can now say that it’s progressed well.
I was there for just one day, and was as busy as a bee – as per the template. Still – I did manage to find the time to take a few pics of some of the more intriguing stands and exhibits…
But, first – it wasn’t the exhibits or stands that impressed most of all. Can you guess what did? Have a look at the following photo. Got it?…
Masks no longer needed. Hurray! Away with you, maddening muzzles! Yes, the virus has weakened, immunity has risen, and the situation is (seemingly, mostly) under control. Let’s hope it stays that way. And I’m sure it will. After all, mega-awful mutants tend to visit us every ~50 years: there was the Spanish flu in 1918–1920, then the Hong Kong flu in 1968–1970, and then of course corona in 2020–2021 (yes, there’ve been other virus pandemics, but they came and went much less noticeably). Anyway, no matter: the latest semi-centennial pandemic – done and dusted!
Right. Next thing to impress? Actually – it wasn’t impress, it was more depress. Just look at these lines to get into the event! Folks had to wait sometimes over an hour. Nope. Sorry: organizers – get a grip. This won’t do at all. Sort it. // I was lucky: as a speaker I entered through a designated door without having to wait.
Once inside – first thing’s first: head over to our stand, where I had my first meeting scheduled. And here we are! ->
February 8, 2022
My first international business trip of the year was as modest as it could get – with just a single port of call. But that port of call was sunny Riyadh, which sure made a welcome change to the sub-zero temperatures and daily snow that’s been falling in Moscow since November!…
I’d been to the city before – in 2013 and 2014 – and both times for conferences, speeches and meetings, and with hardly any micro-tourisms. This year – zero micro-tourisms; not even a nano-tourism. As per – the business schedule was a full and busy one, including matters connected with the imminent opening of our local office here (which I’ll get to in another post). Alas, it was so busy… – zero nice photos too. Apologies folks. My excuse? You’ve got to work hard!
What I remember most from my two first trips to Saudi was that practically all the folks I’d meet would say the same thing: without a serious transformation in the country there’s no future for it in the modern world. To be honest, back then I was a little amazed by the boldness of such statements, but now I see that wasn’t just talk. Changes have been made, and though they’re not big changes, they are noticeable. First of all, public transportation is being built! Earlier there was no such thing: Riyadh was strictly car-only. Today there are overhead transportation lines. No trains yet, but things are looking good ->
December 16, 2021
Finally, I made a long-overdue visit to Fiera Milano, the humungous, legendary fairground and exhibition center in Rho, on the outskirts of Milan. The occasion was the EICMA motorcycle trade show.
What really struck me about the place – just how massive it is. so I looked it up later – and yes, the stats back up my observations: turns out it’s the biggest exhibition center in Europe! ->
Incidentally, Expo 2015 took place here (I mention this as the world-expo topic was touched upon recently after I visited Expo 2020 in Dubai).
July 12, 2021
After a year+ hiatus, business life is finally slowly returning to normal. Hurray! Recent indicators of this: the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the IT Forum in Khanty-Mansiysk, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and just the other day I returned from the Innoprom International Industrial Fair in Yekaterinburg.
So what can I say? First: it’s much more modest in scale than the gigantic proportions of something like Germany’s Hannover Messe – both in terms of the overall quantity of products on show, and also the variety. All the same, there was plenty to look at ->
July 7, 2021
Hi folks!
And now, after yesterday’s mostly miserable post, a positive one!…
This year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona actually went ahead! Hurray!
And I was there in person! Hurray!
And I spoke up on stage! Hurray!
And I gave a slew of interviews to international media! Hurray!
And some ‘fans’ of mine asked for autographs selfies! Grrr. Joke!
Last year, being all 2020, MWC was cancelled. The world’s largest mobile event just didn’t happen; imagine?!
This year – despite the lingering 2020ness (still some closed borders, plenty of restrictions still in place, traveling difficulties, and the conservative conduct of many companies) – the show went on, as it must!
