Putin slaps down Michael Dell at Davos
CNN's Peter Gumbel, Europe editor, reports:
Putin slaps down Michael Dell at DavosAt the official opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Putin, now Russian Prime Minister, delivered a 40-minute speech touching on everything from why the dollar should not be the sole reserve currency to how the world needed to enter into a smart energy partnership with Russia. Then it was time for questions. First up: Dell. He praised Russia's technical and scientific prowess, and then asked: "How can we help" you to expand IT in Russia.
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Putin's withering reply to Dell: "We don't need help. We are not invalids. We don't have limited mental capacity." ... And, in a final dig at Dell, he talked about how Russian scientists were rightly respected not for their hardware, but for their software. The implication: Any old fool can build a PC outfit.
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ah that good old Russian arrogance, treasure it always. It is your best ally.
Let me be the first to say, "oh, snap!"
I never did like that Putin guy. He's mean.
pity him, he wants to be Ivan the Terrible but he's stuck with Dobby the House Elf.
wasn't some guy with putin's hand up his ass PM? or was he finally tired of all the fisting?
Mintphresh @ 5: when Putin was no longer eligible to be president (in the Russian system there's a term limit, IIRC), he chose a successor to be prez and got himself nominated prime minister.
I think there may have been a couple of votes here or there, too.
In that case....can we have the billions in aid back now please Mr.Putin??
http://monta-nari.ilcannocchiale.it/mediamanager/sys.user/52625/putin&dobby.jpg
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMR1BZ9aYM8
Dell was tweaking the tiger's tail with that intro: "“Mister Prime Minister, you spoke of the dangers of excessive government involvement, and I found myself really struck by that comment and surprised to hear that comment. Six months ago, I would have never imagined hearing that comment from yourself, but I have to say I completely agree with you.”Not that he didn't have a point...
Ваше лицо является хромой!
Hardware is the physical manifestation of software, that is why we can have virtual machines in software.
Pootin, thought he was being clever, but he actually made himself look very ignorant. I don't mind arrogance when it comes with benign genius, but an arrogant fool is just a fool.
Even being American and agreeing with Putin that the dollar shouldn't be the world currency (nothing should, use gold if you have to), I think he consistantly proves he is nothing but an ass.
If overwhelming ego, complete and utter lack of any grasp for tact, and exceeding arrogance were our world's currencies for the day, like so many nations of yore, Russia would be eternally wealthy. Try moving to the 21st century, Putin. You make your country a living joke.
Wow, what a an arrogant douche bag (Putin, Dell is just a regular douchebag).
Never mind that Davos is about networking and coorperation, and majority of computer users in this world are still using IE (American), FireFox (open sourced) and Safari (American) and Microsoft Office (American) - all non-Russian software.
I'm guessing it was left out for Fair Use, but this is an important contextual graf, methinks:
Big mistake. Russia has been allergic to offers of aid from the West ever since hundreds of overpaid consultants arrived in Moscow after the collapse of Communism, in 1991, and proceeded to hand out an array of advice that proved, at times, useless or dangerous.
I'd like to see him pull that crap on Steve Jobs...the Don Rickles of tech.
Michael Dell is from here in Austin and, by all accounts of those who have met him personally I have spoken to, is a total douche who deserves to have his ass handed to him by anybody willing. Chalk one up for the Ruskies.
Backdoors have been used before.
Trust but verify (See Step [12])
I want to like Putin because he's one of the few world leaders who wasn't afraid to tell the US to go to hell over the last eight years. But lately, he seems more and more Mugabeish. The ratio of vitriol to substance rises with every utterance.
dig a little, he's an evil little fuck.
#10 nck wntrhltr
"Ваше лицо является хромой!"
Translation:
"TRS-80s mobo fried. Please send powerful new American 286 to lead Russian technological revolution."
You've got to be considerably conditioned to Russophobia to interpret defensiveness (on behalf of a nation of people) as personal or national arrogance.
Granted, the form that defensiveness took was not very clever, but neither was Dell smart in using that opportunity to make ridiculously condescending comments to the Russian Prime Minister.
And really, what on Earth does Russia need with a Dell... an almost wholly outsourced operation with nearly zero engineering expertise. There are few places on Earth that need more American marketing and sales "IT" people from a globalization poster child.
Were those comments being made by an IBM or Intel, they wouldn't have seemed so absurd or provoked such a response.
Russian hardware is always an awesome kludge, jerry rigging to to the Nth degree. But it is brutally practical, often gets the job done, and can approach being a thing of beauty. Russian software is seriously devious shit. Think T-34 or Su-35.
Dell is half-@$$ed bargain basement, low bid crap, deliberately broken to make it harder to upgrade and repair. Think Pinto or Yugo.
In Soviet Russia... screw you Micheal Dell!
Putin might be mean, but he's right about Dell. Of all my students whose computers have died in the past 8 years, 7 out of 9 were Dells and the other 2 were Sony Vaios.
Is that why his President, Dmitry Medvedev, uses a US-designed and China built Apple Powerbook? (as pictured on a plane with one, as posted on this very site)
*runs*
I remember back in the day when the Bush administration sent Rumsfeld out to make it clear that we didn't need any help from "old Europe." Then later it turned out --- oops! --- we did.
Seems like Putin missed an opportunity to learn from someone else's mistake.
@24:
That anecdote would be more meaningful if you told us what percentage of your students use Dells.
Burz - sow what you're saying is that Putin is not arrogant, he's just so insecure he lashes out in public meetings with business leaders?
Dell = Pwnt. +1 for Russia
Putins comments are from Russia with Love
My favorite instance of schadenfeude in recent memory was Michael Dell's predicting Steve Jobs' fall and Apple's imminent downfall. Nice call there, Dell.
BURZ@21:You've got to be considerably conditioned to Russophobia to interpret defensiveness (on behalf of a nation of people) as personal or national arrogance.
or you could spend some time in Russia
Nck Wntrhltr 10: Your person is lame!
Doesn't look so cool in Enlish, does it.
The truth is, they're already cooperating. For what benefit to spammers would Russian botnets be, were it not for hardware made in East Asia with an American nameplate (Dell) running unpatched versions of an American OS (Windows)?
English. Typo, not sarcasm.
of course, the reason Russians have such great software hackers is because their hardware has historically been shit. If you can't compete with IBM, through a metric ton of math prodigies at the software side.
Xopher: A better translation would be "Your face looks lame."
I don't know what he was getting at either.
The report is wrong.
Putin did not say "We don't have limited MENTAL capacity". He said "We do not have LIMITED capacity".
It does change the whole tone of the message. Also if you listen him (if you know Russian language) - his response was not arrogant. Read The New York Times - the most trusted source:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/putin-turns-down-dell-aid-offer/
#22: my fav Russian engineering story - early days of space race, astronauts/cosmonauts were having a hard time using their pens in zero-g. Americans spent a million $$ to develop the nitrogen-charged pen which keeps constant pressure on the ink.
The Russians used pencils.
this story seems to make a nice smokescreen as to the reality of what is going on in these bilderburg-esque meetings over there in davos. lots of very powerful peeps chillin behind closed doors. i'm sure it is for our own good. so...nothin to see here kids! heheh...look! over there... putin and that dell guy...lol...now, just move along.
#38: Untrue, and silly to boot.
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
What exactly is "a smart energy partnership with Russia"?
Presumably Putin's referring to a smart relationship, not smart energy. Because as far as I understand, Russia's focus continues to be on squeezing every last drop of gas and oil out of their turf, rather than using the profits from those resources to develop effective sustainable energy technologies.
Plus, there's nothing smart about Russia's current energy relationship with the rest of Europe. The sooner the oil and gas runs out and they find themselves left without any leverage, the better.
#15: agraham999: Steve Jobs vs Vladimir Putin? That's a fight I'd pay to get ringside seats to.
Of course, my money would be on Putin (or rather, on his security apparatus.)
You do realize 8 years in the life of an average pc is like 2+ lifetimes... Frankly I tell most people anything over 3 years and you have gotten your money out of it. 2 if it's a laptop.
Now the more tech savy can keep it going for years and years, but then again that's not the average joe...
I happen to be in Davos, and attended this session.
From the tone of voice I'll give a small percentage to the chance that Dell was trying to ask "your techies are very good, how can we help them get products to market" but just blew it, being Dell. But I would rather not give much credit to Dell.
There was some mention of invalids in the real-time interpretation, and it was part of Putin's response to the question.
From the way Putin presented himself I can see why Bush thought they were blood brothers.
Now Wei Jiabao was of a different style altogether. His long critique and detailed suggested response was boggling. I have to go find a transcript.
How great would it have been to actually be standing by the two and hear this? Putin, you crazy bastard let me buy you a drink.
Subtle.
Putin probably meant "our botnets own your computers anyway - no need for us to buy your crap when it's there for the taking".
In russia there's two kids of software. The kind they have, and the kind they don't have.
I work for Dell, so I'm getting a kick out of these replies...
/Really do work for Dell
//Not really getting a kick
>$40 a barrel oil should pretty much take care of Putin's operation.
Putin is right--this is Michael Dell asking to 'help,' not Seymour Cray.
He shoots tigers. Don't f*** with him.
The brutal shoot down might not have been necessary had Dell asked honestly 'How can we make a shit-ton of money from your growing power'.
The only people who need help from Dell are their current customers. And they're not getting it.
To borrow from John Stewart (Torture Memo/Biden segment)...
Oh snap! When Putin starts talking street, it's on beotch!
Frankly I tell most people anything over 3 years and you have gotten your money out of it.
I've owned three Dell computers. They've each lasted six years. The one time that my video card fried, there was a tech at my house within 24 hours to replace it. I have no complaints.
Bbonyx@48: Excuse us for not all falling down in worship of your corporate leader. The fact that I worked for Apple for 4 years doesn't stop people from criticizing Steve Jobs here on teh internets. How about giving us some well documented facts to dispute Dell's well renowned dickheadedness? Can't find any? (Ok, to be fair, the Dells do a lot of charity work, but so does Bill Gates. Maybe Putin simply resents his proud country being thought of as a charity.)
And get a kick out of this: I have a Mac that has been in daily power-user workhorse production for 11 years now and still serves me very well with all original parts. What PC clone can touch that?
And BTW, if Steve Jobs had offered such a thinly veiled sales pitch in the guise of "help" I would not expect him to be immune to taking his lumps here too.
News flash: The day you leave Dell you will A) be better treated as an employee, and B) make more $. This has happened to everyone I know who formerly worked there, at every level. However, I congratulate you on keeping your morale, undeserved as it may be, and sincerely wish you the best of luck. You can pick up skills there and everywhere else you work will probably seem so much better by comparison (unless you go to work in Russia.) Sorry if this seems like a flame post. I really do not intend it to be taken as such.
Funny how many people think/thought of Russia as some kind of backward country (at least, before Sputnik ... and a couple doze more space firsts).
The Russians had an Academy of Science in St. Petersberg by 1724. Their advisor was Gottfried Leibniz, a father of calculus. Leonhard Euler took a post there in 1727. While Americans were still figuring out how to survive winter.
#56 - and, years before a bunch of guys strabbed a tin can with a radio transmitter that went "beep beep" to an ICBM booster and started pulling ahead in the dog-killing race, the Chinese used paper money and gunpowder, the Arabs built public hospitals, universities and libraries, and the Americans built good cars. Hang on, I've just stepped out for a moment to check where that leaves them all now...
Nuances of translation aside, Putin behaved unprofessionally. Dell was just asking a question.
As far as Leibniz and Euler, it's all great historical heritage. The fact, however, is that Russia is technologically decades behind the West, there's practically no infrastructure once you leave Moscow/St-Petersburg cluster. Houses in villages within 50 miles of Moscow lack plumbing, so they have to rely on digging wells and drive to town to refill propane tanks to get water and gas.
Do I need to mention the quality of Russian roads?
Russia, like France, has a lot of national pride, and borrows ideas (tech, etc) massively from the West. Then it pretends to 'recreate' this idea as original and play down plagiarism. Hence the concept of 'Runet', etc. What is Runet? Is it a net developed by Russians? No. It's just a bunch of domains ending in .ru. Yet it's presented opposite to 'Internet'.
Kieran#42: Of course, my money would be on Putin (or rather, on his security apparatus.)
Isn't Putin supposed to be some kind of serious black belt-style martial artist? Daily sparring sessions or some such.
fat, lazy, once was judoka...an embarrassment
Putin's speech was mistranslated. Not that anyone here would care, since it's too much fun to insult another nation's leader.
See correct translation here:
http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/36591
In case people are too lazy to check the link, here is the correct translation:
“You know, the trick is we’re not someone in need of help. We’re not invalids. Help is something that you should give to poor people, to people with limited capacities, to pensioners, to developing countries…”
Americans, do not listen to Putin. Please, help me first!
I need one Macbook. One digital camera Canon 1d. And some lenses.
Talking to a fellow ski-er yesterday she, a Russian speaker, faulted the English -> Russian translator of Dell's comment.
Apparently the translator dropped all mention of IT from Dell's question, making it sound more dismissive than it was intended.
Funny that after this skiing I was almost flattened by the Putin kamikaze motorcade as I tried to help an older person across the icy streets.
yes indeed, any old country can build a Trojan horse to infect millions of computers worldwide. Any old country can produce more serious viruses than any other. Funny how they seem to mainly come out of Russia though!
@# 55 - Lighten up Francis. It's a cliche from Fark.
@66: Everybody's got a farkin' excuse... ;D
Anon - Russia, like France, has a lot of national pride
Russia can totally kick France's ass at genocide.
Is Russia already considered a "developed" country? I was under the impression you could still order Russian mail brides.