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Google Buys Finnish Paper Mill
raffnix writes "Today, Finland-based paper group Stora Enso has announced that Google is buying the buildings and most of the Summa Mill site, where production of paper was ceased last month, for approximately 40 million Euros ($51.7 million). Obviously the space is most likely going to serve as a data center, which has now also been confirmed by
Reuters."
Shows what the media knows. Haven't they heard of GMail Paper? Here's the spiel from Google:
With Google's ad revenue suffering due to economic conditions, I imagine they need this new source of revenue very badly. For those who are curious, Wikipedia has a great article detailing the history of this new venture by Google.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
No, I see what Google's angle is. Get everybody using computers, move away from paper, and once nobody else is making paper suddenly Google will come out with the latest hot product only available on paper! And you have to have this product; nay, you need this product. You couldn't face your friends and family without it. This plan is so cunning, so clever, so devious, you could stick a tail on it and call it Karl Rove.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I thought everyone new that due to the advent of Internet and Google (docs, mail, etc) *ALL* Paper Mills were Finnished.
month != year
wow.
A paper mill is just a big building. I use to work for a company where the building use to be an old saw mill. Heck the house I live in use to be a small Candy Factory.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
They just need industrial space. It just so happens that paper mills, like data centers need a lot of electricity.
Which is cheap if your grid is fed by a hydroelectric dam (Summa, Finland area does have hydro-power).
Lots of paper mills have gone out of business in the last decade, changing paper use habits has caused this.
This is the second article this week that confuses 2008 with 2009. The other was the article on the LHC startup.
They bought it to print their own currency. By the time it's up an running, the US dollar will be worthless due to inflation. Prudent business decision I must say :-)
Because some mods obviously didn't get it that was an April Fools Joke from 2007.
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
last month in January 2008
I knew it! CmdrTaco is a Time Traveller. Getting our news from the past.. brilliant!
Big corporation buys some land to put buildings on. Previous occupant happened to be a paper mill, but who cares? Maybe I'm crazy, but I really don't see what's so newsworthy about this.
I read the internet for the articles.
Are you sure it wasn't Primatech they aquired? That would fit perfectly with their "Don't be evil" motto.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
After all, even with this new addition to Gmail, production is going to be down. As a person born in Albany, OR, and having to smell the paper plant every time I go back- let's just say at least as smog it has "flavor" (a kind of spicy smell....)
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
...which has now also been confirmed by Reuters.
Wait, didn't Wikipedia just kill the liability of journalism?
I am the lawn!
Wouldn't want them to buy an Unfinnish factory now would we?
My co worker tells me they have a power plant on site, so tick the electricity box...
The location is right my the sea, and also handily close to Russia. There's a map in this Helsingin Sanomat article:
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Stora+Enso+closing+Summa+and+Kemij%C3%A4rvi+mills+at+brisk+pace+/1135233375617
So basically they can easily lay cable from and to the site, and they can have excellent connections to Russia without actually having to place the hardware there. (Not that I'm sure it would be an issue these days.)
Also, they can literally put the hardware on a ship and ship it right to the location.
.: Max Romantschuk
Should be "Google to produce hardcopy of Internet"
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Doesn't sound like google they don't finnish anything half their products are still in beta!
Wow. Sometimes I wonder who the hell falls for infomercials and Nigerian scams. Then I see responses to an obvious hoax like the previous, and it all makes sense.
Please tell me that the previous responses to this were trying to be ironic, I'd feel a lot better about the human race.
Actually the e-mail spy law was implemented in Sweden (neighbor) not Finland incidentally a lot of data traffic from Finland Goes through Sweden. Now this data center might just re-route the traffic some other way e.g. through Estonia.
to merely put the newspaper industry's reason for existence into doubt
now google actually has to go out and confiscate newspapers' means of production and forcibly convert paper mills into data centers? talk about insult on top of injury
i think someone at google is taking this whole notion of the digital "revolution" a little too seriously, no? do they assassinate rupert murdoch and demolish the conde nast building next?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, don't know you're just trolling, but FYI the law (Lex Nokia as it is called) has not yet been passed. Also the climate is very favorable, cold winters and not very hot summers...and I suppose the quite cheap electricity, good infrastructure and abundance of highly trained CS engineers in Finland does not hurt.
abundance of highly trained CS engineers in Finland does not hurt.
Not quite true. I'm an M.Sc. student and there has been a lot of discussion about quotas at universities being too big since if too many are admitted, quite a few people that simply aren't bright enough are admitted too. So there are quite a few M.Scs here - we still have the highest income level, after all - 10-25 % above MBAs on average (I study that too so I have access to all statistics). But not all with a degree, are particularly good (so employers do check grades).
What will become of things as more sites along with facebook, such as Multiply, myspace, and all the others become "incentivized" to sidle along with Google. If Google IS in bed with Uncle Same, umm, Uncle Sam, we can all forget about any further tenuous assertions of "privacy".
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Actually, Googles current servers reside in Sweden, where it recently became possible to snoop on all traffic passing trough the country.
Google itself, or maybe after some prompting from Russians might have found it prudent to move to a country that at least yet does not allow any snooping.
Lex Nokia is currently encountering resistance in all media, so it might not pass after all.
Paper mills are designed for heavy machines and heavy rolls of paper. That means that they have strong floors which don't flex, and they don't collapse when you put in a few tons of batteries.
Because of this, telcos (which are largely DC operations and have huge battery backups) love defunct printing buildings and use them for switches.
It makes perfect sense that Google would want such a stable, heavy building.
Lex Nokia, which hasn't been passed yet, would allow the employer to monitor his employees email accounts located at company servers. It as absolutely nothing to do with Russia, unless we're talking about Russians who are employed by Google and use Gmail.
I repeat: this law, if it passes, would let the employer read emails sent to or from his own email servers by his employees. I'm pretty sure that's not "unprecedented", at least not outside Finland.
Probably the same as Google's connections with China: the company will do whatever it's told. What does that have to do with anything?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Stora Enso has its headquarters in Finland, but it is both a Finnish and Swedish company. In 1998 Swedish Stora Kopparberg and Finnish Enso-Gutzeit Oy merged into Stora Enso. What is interesting about Stora Kopparberg ("great copper mountain") is that it started out as a copper mining company and is probably the oldest existing corporation in the world. The first shares for Stora came out in 1288.
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. --Niels Bohr
1. i was joking. very obviously. i got modded funny, see? you need a new humor chip
2. finland is the hillbilly alabama of europe? wtf? ever hear of nokia? lucky for you you've insulted a people of famously morose and taciturn character, so you should escape with your life
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No - they purchased that site just to be able to put up the sign "Ei saa peittää" on something.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Thanks for this reply, you are correct in all of this, I was simplifying the idea, but yes, there would be need for retrofit in the water system, but the fact that there is a groundwork for this is a plus. And yes, personal or localized power generation solves one of Google's largest concerns, which is the electricity reliability and cost. There is a reason they are wanting in right now in the process of the smart grid development in the US and the data that it will produce.
I read the headline and I thought, "Well, shoot, so many people plagiarize their papers from Google searches that Google might as well own the diploma mill, too. So much for 'do no evil'."
Then the coffee kicked in.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
Paper mills need lots of water. Y'know like for cooling.
Deleted
Well, those buildings might be better than shanty towns but still... Aalto was a fan of functionalism and was an innovite furniture designer, but his buildings are far from efficient and comfortable. Tiny kitchens and bathrooms, small bedrooms and huge livingrooms. Eeerie, dimly lit staircases. National board of antiquities is hell bent to protect the original look and doesn't give permits for visible modifications, renovations have to be according to original design even if it's failed one.
We actually were thinking to buy one of these, but decided against for the reasons listed above.
Aalto is somewhat a holy cow in Finland. You'll usually get bad looks if you critizise his designs. Even if it's valid, like mocking flat roofs which are total disaster in our climate.
A quibble on Lex Nokia: It's not just employers. It's any "service provider", for pretty nebulous definitions of "service" and "provider". Up to and including the landlord and grounds keeper in case of your home connection.
Let me guess... You are Swedish? :)
No-one else thinks that phrase is funny
Swedish Stora Kopparberg and Finnish Enso-Gutzeit Oy merged into Stora Enso. [...] Stora Kopparberg [...] is probably the oldest existing corporation in the world.
Except for the fact that it no longer exists?
Who in turn probably just read it on /.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I repeat: this law, if it passes, would let the employer read emails sent to or from his own email servers by his employees. I'm pretty sure that's not "unprecedented", at least not outside Finland.
Actually according to the law draft, the employer wouldn't be able to read the emails, only headers. Still, I don't like the possibly upcoming law.
I think it's the next service. "Google Bible".
From Finnish viewpoint the news is very interesting, because these paper mill sites (Summa, Kemijarvi mill, and some others) have been continuously in the headlines for the last two years due to their closing down. Many of the cities these factories have resided in are in rather remote locations, and there aren't many companies who are interested in the facilities, meaning a significant share of the taxpayers suddenly become unemployed, without much hope for new companies appearing.
Now the headline where Google, a global superbrand, is buying an obscure paper mill and converting it to a datacenter truly raises eyebrows, I myself almost fell from my chair when a saw the headline. From US viewpoint and scale, it would equate to something like:
"Chinese government to acquire all car factories in Detroit and convert them for clothing production".
Except Google and paper mill makes up a somewhat more nerdy combination. But I agree, people not familiar with Summa paper mills and their history probably won't appreciate this getting to the Slashdot front page.
http://codeandlife.com
Apparently, print is dead.
Netcraft confirms it.
*ducks real low*
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.