Microsoft Slashes Russia Operations After War Clouds Outlook (bloomberg.com) 41
Microsoft is substantially reducing its business in Russia, joining the list of prominent technology firms cutting back or exiting the country altogether after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. From a report: "As a result of the changes to the economic outlook and the impact on our business in Russia, we have made the decision to significantly scale down our operations in Russia," the company said in an emailed statement. "We will continue to fulfill our existing contractual obligations with Russian customers while the suspension of new sales remains in effect." More than 400 employees will be affected, a company spokesperson said. "We are working closely with impacted employees to ensure they are treated with respect and have our full support during this difficult time," Microsoft said in the statement.
Words (Score:2)
Microsoft's Outlook has gone all Cloudy? Come on!
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.. outlook.. (Score:1)
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If only Russia weren't always invading other countries whenever they feel like it, same
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And Mexico should definitely be a-okay to take the entire south west.
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Guess the US is all clear to invade Canada then.
You heard the man, blood and soil is A-OK!
You mean "alrighty"
Re:Honoring existing contracts (Score:4, Insightful)
I dont know of a single country Russia has invaded which it doesnt have a border with or ethnic Russian minorities.
So the fact that they invaded all the countries in between makes the invasion of Czechoslovakia completely okay? Got it. Next time the Americans invade Iraq, they should just invade Russia, Kyrgistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Iran on the way and then you would be okay with it? I guess if they want to invade Switzerland it's fine as long as they go for Portugal, Spain and France on the way. I think I am beginning to understand this new "morality".
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Czechoslovakia was a Warsaw pact ally
"she consented after I put the knife against her throat". You are seriously sick.
Re:Honoring existing contracts (Score:4, Insightful)
I dont know of a single country Russia has invaded which it doesnt have a border
Russia invades the countries it's near. If you get near a point, then make it.
or ethnic Russian minorities.
You mean left over from the last time they invaded that country, and then decided to stay a while? You're making my point for me.
Re:Honoring existing contracts (Score:5, Interesting)
I've always been outspoken against the U.S. invading those other nations like we did. (Personally, I'm still convinced most of this amounts to us having to try to manipulate who is in power in which place, whenever it threatens the stability of the U.S. dollar. There were rumors in the past that oil producing nations wanted to stop taking the U.S. dollar as a form of payment for oil and were going to demand gold instead. With our dollar based on nothing but faith in it still having value, it's imperative the rest of the world keeps accepting it so it doesn't collapse.) That's what happens when your country decides its ok to go trillions into debt.
Still - it's not much of a comparison to what Russia is doing. America has never conquered any of the countries it invaded. We're not trying to annex Iraq or Syria or Libya. We're not trying to seize their natural resources and claim them as ours. In fact, we've wasted a LOT of money trying to rebuild much of what we destroyed during wars with them... because the goal has always been letting them go on as successful countries again, except minus whatever dictator or faction in power there we felt we couldn't let stand.
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Oh, really? How about Germany, Italy, Japan and Mexico?
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Oh, really? How about Germany, Italy, Japan and Mexico?
Japan and Mexico yes, Germany and Italy were part of a joint effort.
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I think that both Britain and Australia would have something to say about the conquest of Japan being a joint effort.
Fair enough, I'm talking about the end part though. The US basically wound up running Japan after using it as a nuclear test site twice, that's pretty creepy.
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America has never conquered any of the countries it invaded.
Oh, really? How about Germany, Italy, Japan and Mexico?
Yeah, how evil the US was for putting German, Italian, and Japanese citizens in charge of their respective nations.
Totally equivalent to Russia forcibly annexing democratic Ukrainian territories into their dictatorship.
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The difference, of course, is that the US occupied [wikipedia.org] those countries, while Russia claims to have annexed [wikipedia.org] the Crimea and other parts of Ukraine that they've overrun.
I'm not entirely sure the argument you're making.
Yes, the US has gone to war with and invaded many countries over the years. In some cases the intentions and results were both quite good, other times decidedly not so.
But it's hard to think of anything the US has done in the past 100 years that is remotely as outrageous and inexcusable as Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine, much less the campaign they're currently undertaking.
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Re:Honoring existing contracts (Score:5, Insightful)
I dont know of a single country Russia has invaded which it doesnt have a border with or ethnic Russian minorities. For the US on the other hand, no country is too far to invade - Iraq,Libya,Syria,Niger,Somalia to name a recent few.. If Russia had warmongers like McCain in power the entire world would be a burning mess right now.
So what? How does that make Russia's unprovoked attack on hospitals and schools okay?
And if they're that worried about Russian minorities suffering under the yoke of higher standards of living, health care, and job prospects, they could always offer them homes in Russia at vastly less cost than an invasion. But they don't do that, because Putin doesn't give a shit about Russian majorities, still less minorities.
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OK, so which of those countries has the US annexed? Made into a vassal state? In the past the US has done such things, but not in the past few generations.
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Most recently US has demanded its vassals to stop trading with Russia and send weapons to Ukraine.
Russia The Island (Score:5, Interesting)
It'd be a safe bet that the Russian people will suffer in near silence for the next decade, as they've done for the past century, as their leadership plays Authoritarian Strongman and achieves next to nothing aside from moving some borders on a map.
Meanwhile, as the de-petrolium-ification of the energy sector continues, innovation will yearn for a new mix of supplies and ideas. Alm of this requires a free-flow of goods and collaboration in the material sciences. Russia, and all countries that prefer isolation, will find it harder and harder to compete with economies slowly making electrical energy as cheap as possible.
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And in a propaganda bubble, it'll be like USSR again where everyone complains (only to trusted friends) about how bad it is but at least it's not like the rest of the world which they've been told is worse.
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> "but at least [USSR 2.0 is] not like the rest of the world which they've been told is worse."
I don't believe the average original-USSR citizen thought the rest of the world was worse off. They just figured it wasn't worth thinking about since accidentally talking about it could get you into trouble. Thus, it was best to close both your mind & mouth to wondering about the world outside.
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It's not just Russia disconnected from trading, it's everyone in the world wouldn't want to resume trade - or do it on a cash-only basis.
Because even if the sanctions were lifted overnight, Russia has basically screwed themselves over for at least the next decade. People won't want to loan Russia anything - because it may be stolen from you either by government or you may be forced to abandon it. So everything Russia wants would have to be bargained for - basically barter and the like. No one would want to
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Vladimir's legacy, at the moment, looks to be a Russia completely disconnected from the major trading channels of the world.
It'd be a safe bet that the Russian people will suffer in near silence for the next decade, as they've done for the past century, as their leadership plays Authoritarian Strongman and achieves next to nothing aside from moving some borders on a map.
Meanwhile, as the de-petrolium-ification of the energy sector continues, innovation will yearn for a new mix of supplies and ideas. Alm of this requires a free-flow of goods and collaboration in the material sciences. Russia, and all countries that prefer isolation, will find it harder and harder to compete with economies slowly making electrical energy as cheap as possible.
Putin's so sick that official videos make him look terminal. He'll be lucky if he's alive in 1-year, much less 10. Once that happens it's not entirely certain what happens next.
I'm actually hoping he lasts until the war is over, I don't see his immediate successor pulling out and Ukraine can't do much better than General Putin micromanaging troops from the Kremlin.
Microsoft moved a Russian coworker (Score:4, Interesting)
To the Netherlands within 2 months of the start of the war. And I mean they assisted him in opening a foreign bank account and provided him with eur funds. Now that he is no longer in Russia, he has full production access again.
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+5 funny.
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What does it even mean to be a "country" when it is run by a sawed-off runt with penis envy and who his own private goon squad, i.e., the FSB?
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Who really betrayed whom in this situation?
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Is any job worth betraying your country?
Corruption, lack of freedom, international pariah status, tens of thousands of young men (often conscripts) lying dead in Ukraine.
Aren't the Russians supporting Putin the ones betraying their country?
Putix? (Score:1)
I thought they tried to convert to a home-tuned Linux distro nicknamed "Putix". What happened to that?