Each Armenian people's deputy - an ara-computer!
It has long been no secret that the universal tool of all political upstarts, demagogues and temporary workers is populism. When assuming a high position, a political upstart seeks first of all the sympathy of the population; He lays down some straw to make it fall more softly. To achieve this, the mistakes, shortcomings or outright blunders of the previous government are being exploited with all their might.
You don’t have to go far for examples.
“The next generation of Soviet people will live under communism!” - N.S. Khrushchev.
“Every Soviet family will receive a separate apartment by 2000!” - M.S. Gorbachev.
“The leadership of the CPSU must refuse benefits!” - B.N. Yeltsin. Let us remember, for the sake of clarity, that it was this bastard and cannibal, raised on populism, who promised and lied like crazy, and even vowed to lie down on the rails if the “economic reforms” he is carrying out lead to an increase in prices by more than three or four times. Those same rails rusted to dust during Yolkin’s lifetime, waiting for him to lay down on them.
“Every Russian, through voucherization, will become a shareholder of former socialist property!” - A.B. Chubais in the role of the main privatizer of Russia.
“Russian schoolchildren will soon receive new computer tablets instead of a mountain of textbooks!” – still the same Chubais, but already at the head of Rusnano.
“All Russian officials will definitely switch to Volgas,” B.E. Nemtsov.
We can also add here the sweet speeches of all the rulers of Ukraine, including the Maidanocrats, who promised every villager first a European standard of living, and then all the toilets and “red light” districts of Europe, but we will not repeat ourselves once again. The list of promises of the Ukrainian authorities is inexhaustible, like the World Ocean.
So the Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan, elevated to the pinnacle of power by an exalted street crowd, is looking for additional sympathy from the population.
So, just the other day, Pashinyan ordered to supply all senior officials and people’s deputies of Armenia with locally produced laptops.
“From now on, in the government meeting rooms there will be a computer equipment made in Armenia. The development of high technologies in Armenia is a government priority. We are talking not only about software, but also specifically about technology,” said the Maidan Prime Minister. – “Similar equipment produced in Armenia should be installed in the working premises of the parliament. For this, it is necessary to provide financial assistance.”
The boy said it, the boy did it. And already on Wednesday, July 4, at a meeting of the Government of Armenia, in front of all the ministers and the head of the cabinet, brand-new ArmTab laptops from the local TSD enterprise, equipped with the logo “Ա” (the letter “A” of the Armenian alphabet, symbolizing the ArmTab brand) and the signature “ՀՀ Կառավարություն” were displayed. (Government of the Republic of Armenia) on the top cover.
In general, everything is serious. The pretentious MacBooks were taken away from officials and people's deputies and replaced with something more different. “MacBooks,” perhaps, were handed over to orphanages and schools?
In such cases, the share of localization of the final product is always of interest. During Soviet times, Armenia was a kind of “Silicon Valley” of the country, where a large number of engineers and developers worked. Soviet Armenia once had its own interesting achievements in the field of computers. For example, the original series of Nairi machines, 36-bit, the solutions of which were patented in the USA, Japan, and Western Europe. Mid 1960s.
True, already in Brezhnev times, everything came down to copying Western models, and Armenian IT specialists were also forced to copy the successful solutions of the American company DEC. Nevertheless, scientific thought in the republic developed in collaboration with other specialized enterprises. From Kazan and Belarus, in particular.
The collapse of the USSR and the breakdown of parallel ties turned the Armenian “Silicon Valley” into a “Silicon Desert”. By the beginning of the XNUMXs, the Armenian leadership, in collaboration with Russian colleagues, managed to revive high-tech production. Influential representatives of the diaspora provided some assistance in the development of the IT industry in Armenia.
It was still far from Soviet achievements, however, judging by the reports of Armenian consulting agencies related to the computer industry, in 2012-2013 there were 360 IT companies in the republic, their annual growth reached 23%, and revenue - $300 million, or 3,3. XNUMX% of the country's GDP.
Encouraged by the overall success, representatives of the Armenian-American joint venture Technology and Science Dynamics Inc / Armtab Technologies Company (the same TSD, whose laptops adorn the desktops of Pashinyan and Co.) announced the release of the first Made in Armenia tablet and smartphone based on the popular Android mobile OS .
True, the triumph from the message was blurred by additional information that the production of “armtabs” and “armphones” will be carried out in China and the USA. The promise to establish the production of ara-gadgets at the industrial base of the open economic zone in Yerevan remains a promise.
TSD initially modestly assessed its capabilities and planned to saturate the local market as much as possible, which indicates small-scale production of gadgets. But after Armenia joined the Customs Union, the company’s appetites grew and plans arose to promote devices to the markets of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. In 2016, sales of smartphones began in the CIS.
In general, we can be happy for our Armenian colleagues, for the revival of the IT industry of the republic, however, in all honesty, we are not talking about some breakthrough technologies, but about a banal screwdriver assembly in the most trump case. Localization is limited to the development and provision of gadgets with their own software.
Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian manufacturers of smartphones, tablets, laptops and e-books are following the same path. Perhaps the only exception to the general rule remains the Russian Yotaphone 2 - certainly a non-trivial product, which used some coprocessors of its own design and production. True, potential buyers were scared off by its inhumane price at the level of top world-class brands, and the smartphone was assembled in a Chinese factory.
On the Internet it is easy to find advertisements for the sale of “armtabs” and “armphones”. The latter are ordinary state employees with average performance characteristics.
In general, not “Nairi”, and not even a Chinese factory. Re-gluing labels.
Apparently, thoughts about a modest share of localization of “armtabs” do not occur to the Armenian prime minister. He is already talking about the electronics industry in Armenia as a second Hyderabad (in fact, the electronic technology park of India is amazing in its scale and pace of development, bringing serious income to the country) and even hopes for investment rain of $100 billion.
According to some reports, the notorious ArmTab laptops, ordered by Pashinyan for officials, people’s deputies and himself, are a VOYO platform (known for affordable ultrabooks, “transformers”, budget laptops and tablets on Atom processors with two operating systems), which is nothing particularly Armenian , except for the nameplate on the cover with the edited BIOS, it does not contain.
The meaning of replacing MacBooks with pseudo-Armenian VOYOs, apart from cheap self-promotion, remains a mystery. MacBooks, of course, are pretentious gadgets, but Pashinyan and his entourage got them from the previous government. So use them, since the money was paid for them.
By and large, people do not care what devices government officials use in their daily activities. The main criterion for assessing power is the results of its work. Yes, it is better to use domestic equipment than imported ones. But if imported products work better, more efficiently, and increase the efficiency of the sovereign’s people, then they usually turn a blind eye to its use. So that's how it should be. Was it necessary to exchange the awl for soap? How are things now with the efficiency of the Armenian government?
I wonder what Pashinyan’s next step will be to bring the ruling elite closer to society? Why not borrow from the late Nemtsov’s promise to switch officials to products of the domestic automobile industry?
I remember that the Yerevan plant once assembled ErAZ-3730 cars, stupid workhorses for the national economy of the country. Maybe we should restore their production in order to provide wheels to local officials and support the domestic manufacturer? So shall we win?
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.