Microsoft leaves Pakistan but promises customers won't notice the change

Microsoft has decided to close its presence in Pakistan. News of the closure emerged in a LinkedIn post by Jawwad Rehman, who established and led Microsoft’s Pakistan subsidiary. A Microsoft spokesperson commented on Rehman’s post as follows As a part of regular process of business evaluation and optimization, we are …

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes when bored I'd browse random subreddits, including ones about India and Pakistan. A lot of posts in the Indian subreddits were about finding ways to migrate anywhere outside of India. I was shocked to see a lot of posts in the Pakistani subreddits were about figuring out how to get in to India. I'm not sure what kind of metric you'd call that, but it doesn't look good.

[CowHorseFrog]

Pakistan is almost a failed state... they cant even run electricity or clean water in major portions of the country. Im surprised MS even bothers to sell anything there.

[elsergiovolador]

Earth

One down, 194 to go. Please let the UK be next. Then Earth. Please.

[retiredFool]

Top priority

You know they are lying thru their teeth when the phrase, "Our customers remain our top priority and can expect the same high level of service going forward." is in the presser.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: Top priority

same high level of service

High only to a limbo dancer?

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Top priority

High only to a limbo dancer?

High in the Ricky Williams sense..

(Old Mike Carlson (NFL commentator) joke. Ricky Williams was an NFL running back, famed for his love of the Devils Lettuce..)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Top priority

I translate the MBA speak as Outsourcing of Outsourcing from Bangalore to Cheaper Pakistan … but via 3rd parties now.

[CowHorseFrog]

Re: Top priority

Yes lets outsource to the same country that cant even run electrical power 24/7 or pick up the rubbish in any of its major cities.

[NoneSuch]

Re: Top priority

Honesty filter applied:

"Our shareholders demand we have more profits this quarter than last quarter. Therefore, we've laid off everyone in Pakistan. Our new call centers in Mumbai will be fine for dealing with Pakistan customers. Can't see any flaws with that logic. We don't want anyone to feel this is in any way anti-Muslim, so we're going to lay off 9,000 people in the US as well so we can point at that and say 'See, we did it there as well...'"

[Pascal Monett]

"other closely located Microsoft offices"

You mean, offices that are outside the blast radius of India's nuclear arsenal, right ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Failed state

Pakistan is a failed state where the government has lost control over insurgents it uses to carry out terrorist attacks in India.

Most of these 250 million Pakistani live in abject poverty and are therefore very susceptible to recruitment by Islamist terrorist organizations.

[trev101]

Re: Failed state

That is a failed argument and old story on this forum for those who don't know Pakistan dropped 6 Indian planes following an unprovoked attack in May 2025 including 3 Rafael which have only now been admitted by the Indian govt.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Failed state

Pakistan is just a much fighting itself (i.e. internal insurgents) as it is India.

How long before the insurgents take over the government and Pakistan is destroyed by nuclear armed Western nations because they fear nuclear terrorist attacks?

There has been no confirmation of 3 Rafale fighters being downed by Pakistan. Only one loss had grudgingly been confirmed and only because there was overwhelming photographic evidence posted on social media. All other losses, if they occurred, have remained under wraps.

[Raj]

Re: Failed state

Pakistan lives for the hope of having somehow harmed India, for real or in imagined terms.

Meanwhile, India adds more than an entire Pakistan to its economy each year now. Pakistan has gone from having an economy 25% the size of Indias to just under 9% now, with a population almost 20% of Indias.

India produces 155MT of steel a year, on par with peak USSR, much more than the US has produced in any one year, and only one country had produced more steel a year - China. Pakistans total steel output in all history adds up to about half of Indias one year output.

Indias services exports - $380 billion last year - alone exceeds Pakistans GDP, since we are discussing software, and IT dominates services exports.

Indias hard currency reserves are north of $700 billion - just behind #3 Switzerland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-exchange_reserves

It takes a lot of scrolling to get to Pakistan at #68 with $15 billion. Add up reserves of the rest of the subcontinent and multiply by 10 and you still end up less than India.

It serves India just fine for Pakistan to stay on this path, and it is entirely ideal for India. Pakistanis don’t have the financial or industrial base to compete . The Chinese of course have no issue with trying to stymie India down to the last Pakistani. India has no problem forcing the Chinese to blow billions on Pakistan at an abysmal RoI.

India knows this is a Sino-Indian rivalry playing out. The Pakistanis are merely operators.

[O'Reg Inalsin]

With a little help from Big C

who knows how to leverage proxy war to exploit every opportunity available. Europe, Middle East, South Asia, everywhere. From Big C's perspective, no state is a failed state, only an opportunity. "I" may not like it, but "I" can not ignore it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pak it in

Normal service will resume soon.

[ZX8301]

Off the map

Historically Microsoft have literally and expensively had trouble placing Pakistan on their own maps. Early on in the multimedia era they had to scrap a load of Encarta CDs because those included a map of the India/Pakistani border that was unacceptable to both countries.

In 2007 when they introduced Xbox 360 in both countries they licenced Brian Lara international cricket from us at Codemasters (RIP) under the localised brand Yuvraj Singh International Cricket 2007 and made the same mistake, so that the first 150,000 Xbox DVDs had to be scrapped, as they used a UN map rejected by Pakistan and India alike.

That was mainly an exclusive territory Xbox console publishing deal intended to deny Sony a PS2 version (BLIC2007) in those countries, so Microsoft took the hit on the million pounds of coasters (at publisher prices) thus wasted. We still made the PS2 SKUs for UK and Oz (the Ricky Ponting remix) where borders are less ambiguous.

[deadlockvictim]

Re: Off the map

ZX8301» map of the India/Pakistani border that was unacceptable to both countries.....

To be fair, that is not hard.

To say that the India-Pakistan border is contested is to put it mildly.

The India-Pakistan border is a masterstroke of English diplomacy (well, from their perspective, naturally).

Have a listen to Sir Humphrey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swKsughT3vM

[trev101]

Opportunity for open source and Linux to capture he market. For self reliance Pakistan needs to create its own domestic versions of Linux and other software. Also it can liaise with China to interconnect with their digital software as China is its biggest importer.

[CowHorseFrog]

The market of a country that cant even run a power grid ?

[hoofie2002]

The only thing Pakistan has that is of any interest to China is warm water ports on the Gulf and the ability to needle India, Chinas biggest regional worry.

Anyone with a brain in Pakistan is seeking a work visa to the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand etc.

[James O'Shea]

If Pakistan fell off the face of the Earth

The only ones who would care would be:

1. India; now they wouldn't have a convenient punching bag

2. China; now they wouldn't have someone else to annoy India

3. Afghanistan; now they wouldn't have an outpost of civilization close

4. Iran; now they wouldn't have someone else to help them blunder and bluster with nukes

5. England; one less country to beat England in England at cricket.

6. Bangladesh; suitably modified versions of 'The Wicked Witch Is Dead' would spontaneously be sung throughout the country

7. Various Gulf states, which would now have to import workers from Malaya and Indonesia

I don't think that MS gives a damn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If Pakistan fell off the face of the Earth

6. Bangladesh; suitably modified versions of 'The Wicked Witch Is Dead' would spontaneously be sung throughout the country

Another component of that masterstroke of British diplomacy: Bangladesh was East Pakistan until fighting a civil war with [West] Pakistan which is possibly unique in that the two belligerent parties were separated by 2000 km of equally hostile territory (India.)

Curzon's 1905 partition of the Bengal Presidency, or Mountbatten's India/Pakistan partition of 1947 your choice which was the larger fuck up; not that ultimately those two acts were unrelated.

I suppose one might consider the last Tory UK PM and various prominent members of that Tory government are in part some sort of karmic repayment.

[hoofie2002]

No Money

There is zero money for Microsoft in Pakistan.

Fraud and piracy are endemic.

Corruption is endemic.

You cannot run a data center as the power grid is busted and unreliable.

The Government interferes in everything.

Any Research and Development will immediately be stolen and sold to the Chinese.

Any staff you recruit will leverage your training to get a visa for anywhere else but Pakistan and disappear.

Physical security is terrible; as a US company you have a huge target on your back and your management are targets for extortion, kidnap or even murder.