""Microsoft is in the midst of an ongoing initiative to expand its global data centre presence... While we are very excited about the potential in Russia, no formal decision or commitment has been made to a data centre build in Russia at this time."

Now that is a Prime Posting which would require for Success a level of XPertease in the Support of Red Zones of Play. A data centre build implies Russia Knowledge to be wider shared which can only be a good thing or is a cross infection the Microsoft plan/dastardly deed?

Now the whole world will have a good source of piracy from MS themselves...

Irkutsk is hardly in a chilly part of Siberia :-)

While it's very cold there from November to March (av. below -10C), it's above zero from April to October, and above 8C av from April to September. And the city has the same latitude (cough n spit) as London. It gets a lot of sunshine (av over 5h a day from March to October) and not much rain. So the cooling for M$ would be best in the ground or the lake taken year-round.

Given good cabling it's got excellent potential for reaching into China and Korea (and extending to Japan), maybe south-east Asia, and, more dubiously, India. Not to forget the opportunities offered by Siberia itself (Novosibirsk etc).

Great geopolitical choice for M£, and a bit worrying for the rest of us, given oil and gas pipelining issues and the political power games connected with this.

Given where it's going to be as well as who owns it the thing is probably going to be doing as much data-sucking as data-pushing, software licenses seem to be more of a curiosity than necessity around that part of the world

"software licenses seem to be more of a curiosity than necessity around that part of the world" :-)

Stan.

Never in the field of human computing was so much said, by so little, to so many. [Thanks Winston ...for the framework..... http://century.guardian.co.uk/1940-1949/Story/0,,128255,00.html]

I wonder if USBinary has got ITs Head around ..... "Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

Methinks that Yanks and their Tanks are no match for the Tsars and their Stars.

"Given where it's going to be as well as who owns it the thing is probably going to be doing as much data-sucking as data-pushing,.." Given who it's coming from, I imagine that is expected. Goodness knows what confections will be concocted for succour and suckers.