Microsoft Russia head Nikolai Pryanishnikov said Wednesday that he does not exclude the possibility of handing over source code used by Skype, an IP telephony provider that the IT giant purchased in May, to the Federal Security Service.

"I would like to do it," he said, Interfax reported. "We just need to go through several more stages of integration [with Skype]."

Microsoft already gave the FSB access to a number of its products, including source code to Windows 7, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SQL Server, hoping to improve sales to the state.

Source code is the fundamental instruction set of a software product, while coding algorithms are used to protect information. Pryanishnikov also said the company intends to further cooperate with the FSB and the state.

(MT)