“Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and accept whatever comes,” says a 16th-century English proverb. And something like this must be thinking of Russian companies before the announcement of a new departure of an American technology multinational from its territory. In this case it has been Cisco which has decided to take the road out and has just announced that it will end its business in both Russia and Belarus, due to the invasion of Ukraine.
The telecommunications giant already announced last March that it was pausing its operations in both countries for three months as a result of the armed conflict, but it was this week that it decided to go one step further. In an official statement, the company states that in the coming days they will begin contacting customers, partners, and vendors to resolve remaining financial issues, including “reimbursement of prepaid services and subscriptions and software agreements.” to the extent permitted by applicable laws and regulations.”
It is not clear, however, whether this decision also means that Cisco cloud products will no longer be available in Russia and Belarus, whether remote assistance services will be affected, or whether Russian users will be denied access to online services such as downloading software or applying security patches.
Cisco told investors that its earlier decision to discontinue operations in Russia cost it $200 million in the third quarter alone. Leaving the country completely will have a significant impact on the company’s accounts. The annual income of the technology until last April was 51,600 million dollars. If we assume that leaving Russia could cost it $800 million a year, Cisco would be giving up about 1.6% of its annual revenue, which is no small feat.
The company thus joins movements such as that of Microsoft itself, which this week has blocked the download of Windows 10 and Windows 11 in Russia, in a policy of sanctions to which almost all the big technology companies have already joined.
