MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected reports on Wednesday that Moscow is allegedly planning to rid government bodies of foreign software, namely Microsoft, replacing these products with the Russian ones.
"This is impossible," Peskov told reporters. "This is possible if domestic manufacturers produce something more efficient, this is a matter of efficiency," he explained.
The presidential spokesman said "in general the work on creating domestic software is underway." "But there is the understanding that using domestic software is possible only where its productive capacity is not lower."
The NBC broadcaster reported earlier on Wednesday citing a senior US intelligence official that Russia is allegedly backing a plan to push out all foreign software in government offices and state-controlled companies.
"We don’t cooperate with any governments on the espionage issues and we will never do this. We give the governments a possibility to make sure that our products are secure. We carried out a huge work to increase protection of our users’ private data, including through judicial proceedings. We filed lawsuits against the American government four times," Microsoft told TASS.
The company stressed that Microsoft activity in Russia is serious and for long. "Our line remains unchanged, and we will continue making our contribution in the country’s economic development, and IT technologies serve as a foundation for this. We are also set to develop our own business in Russia," Microsoft said.