“More precisely, they have been fired. Our friends, whom we have known in this sector for many years, no longer work for Microsoft Azerbaijan. Apparently, Microsoft did not offer these employees work in the offices of other countries,” the expert said.

According to Gunduz, this situation is like a storm out of the blue for the Azerbaijani government, including the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport: “Although HP’s office was closed here a few years ago, no one predicted the departure of Microsoft.

This company is a global infrastructure that influences and manages the IT environment around the world, drives innovation and influences the world order as a whole. His departure from Azerbaijan is simply unthinkable.

According to the expert, Microsoft also stopped operating in Russia and Belarus, and at the same time more than 500 employees in the Russian Microsoft office were fired. So who will implement Microsoft’s projects and commitments related to Azerbaijan? What will happen to the use of Windows and updates to this software, and what will now be the fate of applications such as Office, Office365, Azure and other licensed programs? What will happen to contracts with state authorities? And what will millions of Microsoft customers have to prepare for? How will all this be supported and managed?

“It turned out that all areas of Microsoft’s activities in Azerbaijan will now be coordinated from the offices of this company located in other countries. For example, no matter how strange and incredible it sounds, Microsoft’s solutions in the educational sphere of Azerbaijan (e.g. . MS Teams, etc.) will be managed by someone in the Georgian office. Someone else, for example, in the Irish office of this company, will be responsible for issues related to Microsoft solutions in the state institutions of Azerbaijan,” said Gunduz.

The expert believes that the withdrawal of Microsoft from the Azerbaijani market should worry the top leadership of the country and cause a reaction. The company has not yet released official information about the closure of the Azerbaijan office. There are also no details on the reasons for the company’s withdrawal from the country’s market.