At the official opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Vladimir Putin, 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.
The Dell slapdown took many of the people in the audience by surprise. Putin then went on to outline some of the steps the Russian government has taken to wire up the country, including remote villages in Siberia. 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 being any fool can build a PC.
Michael Dell probably thinks that Russia should close down the country and give it back to the people!
Time for questions. First up was Michael Dell, while praising Russia's technical and scientific prowess, he asked, "How can we help" you to expand IT in Russia.
Answer from Putin, "We don't need help. We are not invalids. We don't have limited mental capacity."
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