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Former Nokia Engineers Fueling Finnish Startups
pbahra writes with an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. From the article: "A few weeks ago Microsoft's European chairman told TechEurope that the average amount of venture capital per head across Europe was just $7. ... Finnish blog ArcticStartup has extrapolated figures showing the total average VC investment per capita for the country was $46 in 2010... The question of why this country on the edge of the Arctic Circle should have such active entrepreneurs came up again in a conversation with Wilhelm Taht, the marketing director of Flowd... 'With Nokia changing gear there is a lot of technical know-how all of a sudden which wasn't available even two years ago,' said Mr.Taht, diplomatically, about the savage job cuts at the struggling mobile phone giant. 'There's a culture of technically savvy engineers. Finns are not necessarily very talkative people, but when it comes to what they know about computers and programming it's pretty staggering.'"
Maybe one of these companies can start selling MeeGo phones for those of us who want pocket computers.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Innovation could have happened, if only they didn't try to "manage" all the fun out of the job. Oh well.
Citations please. I studied Finnish history as part of my degree (three years Finnish language, one year history), and this doesn't sound likely to me. In Finlands case, they had to be bloody careful not to annoy the Soviets - hence the geo-political term "Finlandisation". So I can't see how they could have been doing such research at the behest of the US government.
The article seems contradictory to me. Which one is it, are they starting up or are they finishing up?
I recall Finns and Swedes dominating that scene because the average 13 year old had already studied trig and could program competently in assembly language.
In 2008 there was 1.9$ billion in VC funds in Israel, with a population of 7.3 Million. That's 260$ per head.
I call b-sh-t.
Finland was (and still is) not even a part of NATO. In addition, Nokia certainly was not a big player in those days.
They probably had listening posts in Norway or Sweden, and some components might have been bought from Nokia... but you either exaggerate, or you completely made up that story.
US gov't spent billions per year in Scandinavian investments
I call b-sh-t.
Finland was (and still is) not even a part of NATO.
And more, it is not even part of Scandinavia. They speak a totally different language.
this article is interesting (I'm not able to check the validity).
some highlights:
- Sweden tried to implement a neutral Scandinavian block but failed ultimately as Denmark and Norway joined the NATO.
- Finland signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union and regarded itself as strictly neutral. The US used the status of Finland as example for a successful co-existence with the SU while still remaining independent and neutral.
- While exporting of strategic goods and technology to neutral states was forbidden the US included the neutral countries in the economical import/export network
A Wikipedia article claims that "the U.S. promised to provide military force in aid of Sweden in case of Soviet aggression. Knowledge of this guarantee was by the Swedish governments kept from the Swedish public until 1994, when a Swedish research commission found evidence for it" - unfortunately without source.
Not quite. Some Finns do speak a Scandinavian language.
Did you just make that up yourself?
Nokia was making mostly rubber boots, tires and cables during the cold war era. Also as others have noted Finland was on wrong side. While it wasn't part of Warsaw pact it had very close relations to USSR from 1944 to 1990 so much that any military collaboration with US would have been extremely unwise and would have only hurt finnish national security. Having US listening posts in Finland would have been simply out of question.
By close relations I mean the situation where finnish politicians had to be constantly on their toes not to displease Soviet leadership. What happened in Czechoslovakia 1968 was fresh in everyones minds.
Really? Czechoslovakia was a Soviet satellite state, but Finland - while not in NATO - was not. I suspect the Soviets woudln't have dared invade Finland as it would have had a severe risk of military confrontation with the west. Likewise, I doubt NATO would have done anything to Finland to avoid a confrontation with the Soviets.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Wonder what's happening with those layoff RIM employees?
So where does it say anything about listening posts and surveillance tech imports to Finland? I'm Finnish and knowing our history I find it very unlikely.
:)
Even if what you say is true, (Which I very much doubt) why didn't US use that advanced tech and it took Nokia to commercialize it? Here everyone and his mom had a small mobile phone while in the US they were priviledge of rich juppies (and even they had big luggable ones...strech to call them mobile).
Nokia (and Swedish Ericsson to some extent) had a good head start in mobile phone business during the 90s. Rest of the world catched and finally passed Finland in the mobile tech only during few recent years. Now Microsoft practically owns Nokia so we can say goodbye to any new innovation in mobile tech. It was fun while it lasted.
And to our horror USSR promised Finns the same thing, which Finland politely rejected. NATO's plans (which Finnish military was aware of) were to obiliterate Finlands transportation network and airbases with tactical nukes in case Soviet forces crossed the border. During Soviet force movements and military excercises near the Finnish border bombers on the British airbases were fueled up and on standby.
The Soviets tried, but were beaten off by the Finns (and I guess the weather/terrain/etc helped a bit). As a result the Soviets basically decided Finland wasn't worth the bother and as the Finnish government played a realpolitik game of subservience whilst keeping their sovereignity, everyone was happy.
Google for 'Finlandization' for details.
Yes really. Everything you say is correct though.
It may be worth noting that export status (for sensitive hardware and such) in Soviet Union had a classification category of "Warsaw Pact states and Finland".
For all bits and purposes Finland was regarded neutral enough to actually view it as a reasonably trustworthy diplomatically by both parties during peace time, resulting in many high-level negotiations, especially ones that needed to be done out of media sight between East and West being done there. Installing listening posts form EITHER party would have destroyed this unique status overnight - something leadership would not do under any circumstances. This balancing act between two giants hell bent on destroying each other was the only thing that allowed Finland to retain independence during Cold War.
Notably it was the same thing that allowed it to retain independence during WW2 in spite of being part of Axis, and being located in what Stalin called "strategic Leningrad defence zone". Why? Because finns successfully pulled off a very difficult balancing act between being part of Axis, staging a bloody enough defence to make Stalin think twice of the cost it would take to pacify the country vs letting it stay independent with land successions deciding in favor of latter (and we all know how high Stalin regarded human life cost).
Of course, the other side of the coin was that both East and West regarded the country as expendable in event of an actual war, and had plans to simply level the country with nukes to deny other the use of it. So from local point of view there were no "good guys" in Cold War - there were just two brutal murderous empires ready to wipe out about 5 million nation with tactical and strategic nuclear weapons just to deny other side use of its infrastructure. As a result, NATO isn't exactly loved by anyone other then right wing folks, and old school Russia haters drawing their hate from what happened during Winter War and WW2 who see NATO as the "enemy of my enemy".
VC has traditionally been scarce in Finland, as is evident in the Finnish proverb:
No American would walk away from a tenfold ROI no matter how unlikely the success...
My brain hurts.
Microsoft iceberg aside, the Nokia leadership managed to keep Nokia as the largest cell phone manufacturer in the world.
Never mind that its market share is plummeting...
They're not looking so hot right now, but they still push more phones into the market than any other company.
Which doesn't matter a spit if they aren't profitable. You can generate tons of revenue giving away $2 for $1 but you'll be out of business faster than you can say Chapter 11. The reason to not immediately press the eject button as an investor in Nokia is that they have about $10 billion in cash.
What will Nokia be left with? A mediocre, minority mobile phone platform, and their work force stripped of all quality.
I can't believe that shareholders are standing by, and watching, as the current incompetent throws away all of Nokia's best technology, and replaces it with something that has already failed even more miserably, 'windows phone'.
There has been electronic surveillance on both sides of the Finnish/Soviet border and both sides knew what was going on.
Nokia does (used to?) manufacture some of the devices Finland's army used in communications so it isn't a far fetched idea that they worked closely together with Finland's military. In fact most Nokia's Finnish male workers are reservists including the execs.
Is that a shutdown?
>there is a lot of technical know-how all of a sudden ... but when it comes to what they know about computers and programming it's pretty staggering
Assuming these super smart people make up 0.1% of the entire population including children and old people (highly unlikely), that would mean all 6,000 of them. 6,000 people. So, in brief:
>there is a lot of technical know-how all of a sudden ... but when it comes to what the 6,000 Finns know about computers and programming it's pretty staggering
I don't find that staggering. In fact, its pretty underwhelming. BTW, I, like most people here in America, are European (ethnically) and I speak a European first language, so its not like I'm being racist.
Not quite. Some Finns do speak a Scandinavian language.
By that logic, Sweden is an Arab country.
OK, I know Helsinki is officially bilingual. Having road-signs in an Indo-European language was very helpful.