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."

Comments

Media has it Wrong

[AKAImBatman]

Google is buying the buildings and most of the Summa Mill site [...] the space is most likely going to serve as a data center

Shows what the media knows. Haven't they heard of GMail Paper? Here's the spiel from Google:

Everyone loves Gmail. But not everyone loves email, or the digital era. What ever happened to stamps, filing cabinets, and the mailman? Well, you asked for it, and it's here. We're bringing it back.

A New Button
Now in Gmail, you can request a physical copy of any message with the click of a button, and we'll send it to you in the mail.

Simplicity Squared
Google will print all messages instantly and prepare them for delivery. Allow 2-4 business days for a parcel to arrive via post.

Total Control
A stack of Gmail Paper arrives in a box at your doorstep, and it's yours to keep forever. You can read it, sort it, search it, touch it. Or even move it to the trash--the real trash. (Recycling is encouraged.)

Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe
Google takes privacy very seriously. But once your email is physically in your hands, it's as secure as you want to make it.

Is it free?
Yes. The cost of postage is offset with the help of relevant, targeted, unobtrusive advertisements, which will appear on the back of your Gmail Paper prints in red, bold, 36 pt Helvetica. No pop-ups, no flashy animations--these are physically impossible in the paper medium.

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.

Re:Media has it Wrong

[Alphager]

It is neither relevant nor informative; it's funny.
Gmail paper was the 2007 april's fool joke...

Re:Media has it Wrong

[slashdotmsiriv]

One of my favorite parts of the joke was the testimonial:

"Now that I have Gmail Paper, I understand the difference between labels and folders. I had one message with two labels, but when I tried to stick the paper version into two filing cabinets at the same time, it just wouldnâ(TM)t go."

Mayumi M., Associate

Re:Media has it Wrong

[drinkypoo]

Informative? This is Google's April 1st joke from 2007.

Allow me to inform you: Moderation is broken. Funny gives +1 to the article but not +1 to karma. So people have taken to moderating funny comments as informative or insightful, so that when you get moderated down as Overrated you aren't suffering a net karma loss.

That or someone just got taken in, and so they deserve the karma point anyway. Let it go.

Data center? A likely story

[jollyreaper]

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.

Re:Data center? A likely story

[Oidhche]

No, I think they're gonna print their own money.

Old News? Wrong Headline?

[dmomo]

I thought everyone new that due to the advent of Internet and Google (docs, mail, etc) *ALL* Paper Mills were Finnished.

Google Buys building.

[jellomizer]

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.

Re:Google Buys building.

[primalamn]

It is also a very big building with a massive supply of electricity already installed. Paper mill machinery is very large and runs of major amounts of electricity, so buying a defunct paper mill is a very good idea on their part, as the retrofit will not be the total infrastructure of the building.

Re:Google Buys building.

[Rogue974]

Interesting thoughts, but not necessarily valid all around. I worked in pulp and paper for 6.5 years, so I know my way around paper mills and had a few thoughts.

Yes, paper mills have large electric service hook ups. Not diffcult to hook into.

Yes, paper mills use their own closed loop water systems, BUT when the paper mill was decommissionined, most of that equipment was probably taken away and went to another facility of the paper company. Also, the systems are at times "closed loop", but they are also quite often closed loop when you look at the facility entire with the water that hits the floor being recycled back into the water system for reuse.

Also, paper mills water systems usually deal with 10" + diameter pipes I imagine most of the piping would not be a good reuse for cooling in a server environment without sever revamping.

The standards required for server cooling loops and that of a paper mill are quite differnet. In paper mills, it is a routine task to take a hose and spray things down. Because of this, small leaks in pipe, no big deal, the water will flow into the sumps and be picked up and put back in. Imagine reusing the old pipes to do some cooling loops and have a water spray t 140 psi shooting water across your server room or into the cube farm.

Someone pointed out many paper mills are on rivers and generate their own power. Even if not using the river (which they need to dump effluent as well), many have power generating stations associated with them as well. There is a good chance that the mill has a generating station hooked to it. Google coudl have purchased that, or the paper company could have maintained ownership. Either way, the new data center is probably connected to the power station to increase reliability.

So I think the big thing that Google gets out of it is:

A shell of a building (take almost everything out from inside)
Large electrical server
Possible power generating station ownership or being directly connected to the power station.

The "Paper Mill" part is incidental

[jafiwam]

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.

Re:The "Paper Mill" part is incidental

[kqc7011]

There is also a paper mill in Niagara Wi. that is also being closed by Stora Enso that has its own hydro electric dam. Google could do the same thing here. Google could put a small town back to work. And make a profit selling the extra electricity too. Something different, a data center that pays for itself.

Re:The "Paper Mill" part is incidental

[Fozzyuw]

I was not aware that the Niagara paper mill was closing down. But I don't think a data center will employ as much people as a paper mill, nor will it be of the same skill set. While it certainly would create some good paying jobs, Niagara will need more than that to replace the jobs lost.

Its 2009 already!

[Lord Byron II]

This is the second article this week that confuses 2008 with 2009. The other was the article on the LHC startup.

Gmoney

[robert899]

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 :-)

Why is this news?

[jandrese]

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.

Primatech

[Per Wigren]

Are you sure it wasn't Primatech they aquired? That would fit perfectly with their "Don't be evil" motto.

Re:CmdrTaco == Time Traveller

[jimbobborg]

I think this joke is Finished.

Location, location, location.

[Max Romantschuk]

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.

Re:Location, location, location.

[Max Romantschuk]

This seems to be the site:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=ensontie+summa+finland&sll=60.535839,27.158031&sspn=0.065861,0.179901&ie=UTF8&ll=60.544113,27.142239&spn=0.065844,0.179901&t=h&z=13&iwloc=addr

(Judging from the fact that "Ensontie" (Enso road) goes right by the gray bits which are clearly an industrial complex.)

Re:Location, location, location.

[Anonymous Coward]

The original site was home to the lumber yard, pulp mill, port, and paper mill designed in 1936 by famous architect Alvar Aalto. It also includes two groups of housing complexes - one for management, and another further away for employees and their families. All of the support buildings (schools, cafeteria, etc.) are also on-site. In total I believe there is housing for around 100 families, with 6 reserved for management.

The worker housing is not the low-quality type that Ford built around it's factories, which Aalto was aware of, and he even referred to Ford's (and other companies doing this at the time) as shanty towns when designing this facility.

Mistake in headline:

[MadMidnightBomber]

Should be "Google to produce hardcopy of Internet"

Re:How nifty!

[registered_after_8_y]

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.

Paper = weight

[wonkavader]

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.

Re:How nifty!

[ultranova]

How nifty! They put a **HUGE** data center where the law was changed to allow unprecedented spying upon e-mail traffic, **AND** through which Russia is mostly connected to.

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.

What are the Google connections with the CIA, again????

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?

Stora Kopparberg

[Bj�rn]

Today, Finland-based paper group Stora Enso

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.