Anti-virus software maker Kaspersky Lab plans to open its first office in Israel, its chief executive officer said Wednesday.
"For an oil company, it would be a very good idea to have an office in Siberia or Russia. Being a cybersecurity company, it's a very good idea to have an office in Israel," the company's CEO and co-founder Eugene Kaspersky said.
Kaspersky added that the company was also on the lookout for Israeli experts to join the company's global experts team.
"It's very difficult to find these guys because they are like chess champions … and there are so many clever people in Israel," Kaspersky told journalists at Tel Aviv University's Yuval Neeman cyber security conference.
The Moscow-based company makes one of the top-selling anti-virus programs in the United States, but with the decline of global sales of personal computers, demand has slowed.
In May, the company said it planned to open its first office in Washington to spearhead sales to the U.S. government, one of the world's largest buyers of technology products, in a bid to offset slowing demand for its consumer programs.
Last year, global PC sales posted their biggest decline in more than two decades, hurt by a shift to tablets and smart phones.
Kaspersky Lab said it hoped that the new Tel Aviv office would strengthen the company's sales in the region.
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