Former Nokia Engineers Fueling Finnish Startups

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Former Nokia Engineers Fueling Finnish Startups

Posted by Unknown on Thursday August 4, 2011 @02:15AM from the funeral-pyre dept.

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.'"

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Good by GameboyRMH · 2011-08-04 02:23 · Score: 2

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
1. Re:Good by Bromskloss · 2011-08-04 02:36 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe one of these companies can start selling MeeGo phones for those of us who want pocket computers.
  Yes! Or, even better, Meamo, which I understand is more Debian-like (deb packages, for example), rather than Fedora-esque as MeeGo (RPM packages).
  
  --
  Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
2. Re:Good by GameboyRMH · 2011-08-04 02:44 · Score: 2
  
  Either way, they both have their ups and downs. Keep in mind that Maemo is designed for a separate rootfs which makes porting Debian packages straight in even less likely to work. Presumably MeeGo will do away with this system on newer hardware, in which case I would have preferred if they stuck to Debian packages, even though RPMs are technically more robust - in practice I've had way more trouble with RPM than DEB package management.
  Also MeeGo is actually Debian-based with RPM package management shoehorned in. Weird, I know.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
3. Re:Good by Microlith · 2011-08-04 02:47 · Score: 2
  
  Maemo isn't designed for it so much as that's how it happened due to the flash layout on the N900.
  Also MeeGo is actually Debian-based with RPM package management shoehorned in. Weird, I know.
  No, it isn't. MeeGo is purely RPM based. The N9 runs Harmattan, which is effectively Maemo 6 and still a DEB based system.
4. Re:Good by Bromskloss · 2011-08-04 02:51 · Score: 1
  
  Thank's for the info. I suppose that would allow me to let my guard down against MeeGo, then. Now when someone only makes a phone with this OS and a physical keyboard and high performance and a good battery life, I might actually go ahead and upgrade from my current ten year old phone! Yay!
  
  --
  Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
5. Re:Good by GameboyRMH · 2011-08-04 02:52 · Score: 1
  
  True, purely RPM based, but the rest of the OS is still based on Debian, not Fedora.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
6. Re:Good by cpscotti · 2011-08-04 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  Go get yourself one; for free: http://wiki.meego.com/Community_Office/Community_device_program/Nokia/N950_Extended_Program :D
7. Re:Good by alex67500 · 2011-08-04 04:12 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe one of these companies can start selling MeeGo phones for those of us who want pocket computers.
  May you be speaking the truth.
  Mind you, if they're pouring out of the Nokia engineering team, they participated to Symbian, which leaves me full of doubts as to their actual skill...
8. Re:Good by diegocg · 2011-08-04 04:37 · Score: 2
  
  Or even better: Make possible to disable the android userspace and install the Maemo userspace on android phones.
9. Re:Good by vegiVamp · 2011-08-04 05:31 · Score: 1
  
  RPM may or may not be more robust, but how is the documentation? All I can ever find is a decade-old book about RPM v2 or so, while Redhat's packages are at least on v5 by now. Debian's packaging manifest may be complex and unwieldy, but it's at least reasonably up to date, and you can already get quite far with the packaging guide for beginners. The .spec format I dug up didn't even want to compile on a recent RPM system - some keywords had apparently changed.
  
  --
  What a depressingly stupid machine.
10. Re:Good by Tanuki64 · 2011-08-04 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  Unless you are a developer who is interested to start developing for the upcoming N9, believe me, you don't want it.
11. Re:Good by vbraga · 2011-08-04 05:48 · Score: 1
  
  Fedora documentation on RPM is fine (I didn't try the RHEL one). Just start from here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_create_an_RPM_package
  If you want examples, use yumdownloader --source to get SRPMS for other packes, install the rpm on a dummy account ( "rpmbuilder" or something ) and the look at the SPECS files on the rpmbuild tree.
  It's quite easy to package software for Fedora.
  
  --
  English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
12. Re:Good by Microlith · 2011-08-04 06:54 · Score: 1
  
  No, please stop assuming things.
  MeeGo is built against the LSB, and is not Fedora derived, nor is it Debian derived.
  Harmattan, which the N9 runs, is based on Maemo and offers a lot of MeeGo APIs. Harmattan is Debian derived.
13. Re:Good by Tanuki64 · 2011-08-04 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  I don't care too much about the RPM internals. I use CMake as build system. This includes CPack. Set a few variables in the CMakeLists.txt file and you get an RPM or DEB package just by typing 'make package'.
14. Re:Good by Skuld-Chan · 2011-08-04 09:30 · Score: 1
  
  After having read this thread I think I understand why neither Maemo and MeeGo will ever make it anywhere.
15. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 21:49 · Score: 0
  
  I don't know about RPM, but for DEB the resulting packages do not conform to the Debian package guidelines. Last time I tried the DEB packages, they didn't even include proper run time dependencies, which is normally one of the advantages of the packaging system. Hence, the cmake build DEB are good if you want to have a clean install/uninstall path, but they are not good for distribution.
Where is the cash? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 02:23 · Score: -1

The US gov't spent billions per year in Scandinavian investments during the cold war to spy on Russia. Much of the early Nokia research was an excuse to put up listening posts in odd places. Now all new funding is from retirement funds dumping cash they must invest every week. As a society are we making progress?
1. Re:Where is the cash? by LizardKing · 2011-08-04 02:29 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  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.
2. Re:Where is the cash? by captainpanic · 2011-08-04 02:45 · Score: 1
  
  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.
3. Re:Where is the cash? by quenda · 2011-08-04 02:50 · Score: 2
  
  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.
4. Re:Where is the cash? by rbrausse · 2011-08-04 02:57 · Score: 1
  
  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.
5. Re:Where is the cash? by Eevee · 2011-08-04 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  And more, it is not even part of Scandinavia. They speak a totally different language.
  Not quite. Some Finns do speak a Scandinavian language.
6. Re:Where is the cash? by ladoga · 2011-08-04 03:13 · Score: 1
  
  The US gov't spent billions per year in Scandinavian investments during the cold war to spy on Russia. Much of the early Nokia research was an excuse to put up listening posts in odd places. Now all new funding is from retirement funds dumping cash they must invest every week. As a society are we making progress?
  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.
7. Re:Where is the cash? by Alioth · 2011-08-04 03:19 · Score: 1
  
  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
8. Re:Where is the cash? by ladoga · 2011-08-04 03:57 · Score: 2
  
  this article is interesting (I'm not able to check the validity).
  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. :)
  
  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.
  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.
9. Re:Where is the cash? by gbjbaanb · 2011-08-04 03:58 · Score: 1
  
  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.
10. Re:Where is the cash? by ladoga · 2011-08-04 04:11 · Score: 1
  
  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.
  Yes really. Everything you say is correct though.
11. Re:Where is the cash? by Luckyo · 2011-08-04 04:17 · Score: 2
  
  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".
12. Re:Where is the cash? by Aggrajag · 2011-08-04 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  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.
13. Re:Where is the cash? by quenda · 2011-08-04 17:50 · Score: 1
  
  And more, it is not even part of Scandinavia. They speak a totally different language.
  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.
As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by bre_dnd · 2011-08-04 02:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

... this confirms my bitter suspicions that it wasn't the engineers running Nokia against the iceberg, but the captains.
Innovation could have happened, if only they didn't try to "manage" all the fun out of the job. Oh well.
1. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 02:36 · Score: -1
  
  Except not every engineer will make a good product - let alone run a good business.
  Also I thought it was fairly widely known that Nokia had let their hardware engineers dictate what gets made and the software guys have to bend over to cater to the hardware. And look where that got them?
2. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 02:42 · Score: 0
  
  They did run the company in the right direction to get bought by Microsoft sooner or later...
3. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by GameboyRMH · 2011-08-04 02:56 · Score: 1
  
  When you accept the Kiss of Mobile Death from Microsoft, you've done something wrong. Many companies don't survive it at all (See: Palm).
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
4. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 03:27 · Score: 0
  
  Except not every engineer will make a good product - let alone run a good business.
  You don't need every engineer to do that. In fact just a few. There were plenty of good software products developed inside Nokia. Their failure to see the light of day is entirely a fault of the senior management in general and OPK in particular.
5. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by RingDev · 2011-08-04 03:43 · Score: 1
  
  Microsoft iceberg aside, the Nokia leadership managed to keep Nokia as the largest cell phone manufacturer in the world. They're not looking so hot right now, but they still push more phones into the market than any other company. Just saying, they've been exceptionally successful thus far, and it'll be interesting to see how they go on in the "post iceberg" state.
  -Rick
  
  --
  "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
6. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by pavon · 2011-08-04 03:49 · Score: 2
  
  To me it appears that what killed Nokia was lack of focus.
  Mameo was very promising, and instead of focusing on polishing it, they decided to make a huge side-step with MeeGo. From my outsider perspective, that sounds like exactly the sort of thing that an engineer would do - decide to refactor code rather than focus on user-facing features. The same thing happened between Gnome 1-2, and KDE 3-4 (projects run by engineers), breaking all sorts of things for the sake of cleaning up the codebase. Such things might be a good decision in the long term, but it was a horrible decision considering the need to get something to market at a crucial time.
  Deciding to consolidate on QT to unify Symbian and MeeGo development was also a good decision for the long term, but had horrible business timing, and again has the smell of engineers in charge.
  Finally, continuing to invest so much into Symbian without making hardly any user-noticeable progress and under-investing Mameo, sounds like people that were too attached to their "baby" to recognize that it was becoming irrelevant in the market. I could see both engineers and management having that failing.
7. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by timeOday · 2011-08-04 03:53 · Score: 1
  
  Personally I think it was inevitable they'd be crushed eventually. I have sympathy, having lived in Utah at the time when Novell and Wordperfect were doing really well there, and it appeared we might be a real player. But the market grew and they were crushed. As industries mature, only 1 or 2 behemoths survive. The odds of any particular company making it, even if they get off to a good start, are slim.
8. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 03:57 · Score: 0
  
  nice troll.
  I almost didn't notice.
9. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by gbjbaanb · 2011-08-04 04:08 · Score: 2
  
  but it appears that they lose focus once they were the biggest - sure, they had Maemo as a strategic plan, but they didn't keep it small and tight. Meanwhile the rest of the company went on a spree of managers and bloat while the times were good, thinking they could never end.
  That's probably what killed them, taking their eye off the ball. If they had released Maemo (or MeeGo even) then I think they would still be the number 1 phone manufacturer and we'd possibly be talking about the 3-way split of phone OSes, or even potentially 2-way, with Android being a niche, "geek" toy.
10. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 04:16 · Score: 0
  
  I remember having similar discussions decade ago, before anybody has ever heard of iPhone, that one day big consumer electronics manufacturers will figure out mobile phones and we'd be out of business. That the attack was two pronged Google and Apple at the same time was bit of a surprise.
11. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by Luckyo · 2011-08-04 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  If that was true, Nokia's would have had touchscreen on most of its smartphones around 2005. But the pilot phone was buried as "too risky" by management
12. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by schlachter · 2011-08-04 04:33 · Score: 1
  
  isn't this the usual case?
  
  --
  My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
13. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 04:56 · Score: 0
  
  Microsoft iceberg aside, the Nokia leadership managed to keep Nokia as the largest cell phone manufacturer in the world. They're not looking so hot right now, but they still push more phones into the market than any other company.
  Selling more no-profit "feature" phones isn't a viable business strategy anymore. It's easy to win a game that nobody else is playing.
14. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by ras · 2011-08-04 12:08 · Score: 1
  
  From my outsider perspective, that sounds like exactly the sort of thing that an engineer would do
  Well from this engineers perspective it sounds exactly like the sort of thing an engineer wouldn't do. Mameo was their invention, their baby. All their home grown hard work was thrown out, and replaced by something a bunch of outsiders developed.
  It had all the hallmarks of a high level business decision. "We need to get closer to Intel - how do we do that? Oh, we could just throw away what our phone engineers have done and use something thing developed by Intel engineers for tablets instead. It's all just Linux right, so it's got to be almost the same." Wrong, wrong, wrong. Back in October 2010, when the N9 was supposed to be shipping, MeeGo was swapping before it got to run a line of UI code.
  They eventually fixed the problem by ripping out MeeGo. The N9 that will be shipped next month runs Mameo underneath. That single mistake looks to be the straw that broke the camels back. Ellop joined Nokia in September 2010. The N9 was supposed to be shipping September 2010. Had Nokia been shipping their shiny new OS in September, I think history would have been very different. Instead what Ellop found was a technology company deeply aware it had to ship a new model every 12 months or so because mobile phones had become a fashion item, yet its engineering team hadn't delivered a product to ship.
  The story looks to be one of the business managers of an engineering company loosing confidence in the ability of its engineers to deliver. And so now they made another hard headed business decision to fire their engineers, and use someone else's instead - Microsoft's. Yet this failure to deliver - it wasn't because of the decisions of the engineers, it was from the decisions of the people that are now firing them. From where I sit, as an engineer, it is the saddest of stories.
15. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by bre_dnd · 2011-08-04 20:46 · Score: 1
  
  Symbian always had touch-screen capability -- (look up the SonyEricsson P800 or the Psion 5mx for some proof) -- Nokia chose not to implement it on their phones.
16. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by bre_dnd · 2011-08-04 21:00 · Score: 1
  
  > but they still push more phones into the market than any other company Loads of low-end phones that don't make much profit.
  In it's heyday Nokia pushed out over *50* different, new phone models a year. Roughly 30% of those were Symbian phones. Apple pushes out *ONE* model with minor variations. Even with significant re-use, juggling several source trees, porting patches back and forth between them, building multiple releases of the OS with different feature sets is more of a headache than razorsharp focus on *ONE* good phone.
  As a software engineer I've tried to make the point that, maybe, people don't want to choose between 19 different models that are minutely different. (Do I want a qwerty keyboard? If I buy the business version it (used to) come with a 2.5mm socket and my standard headphones won't fit. Do I want the business version? Which of the 19 available Nokia qwerty phone models should I get? -- have a play: http://www.nokia.co.uk/find-products/all-phones)
17. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-05 05:31 · Score: 0
  
  I don't agree
18. Re:As a former Nokia/Symbian engineer... by LordVader717 · 2011-08-06 11:37 · Score: 1
  
  In the higher-end market Nokia went from being the nonplus ultra of phone manufacturers to a minor player with options barely worth considering. Down-market the situation looks a little better, but whether that's enough to sustainably support a tech company like Nokia is questionable.
  While Nokia might be able to push the biggest volume of phones onto the market, they have failed in one key segment: the market of the trendsetters.
I'm confused by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 02:32 · Score: 0

The article seems contradictory to me. Which one is it, are they starting up or are they finishing up?
Remember the demo scene? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 02:39 · Score: 0

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.
1. Re:Remember the demo scene? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 03:20 · Score: 1
  
  It still exists and it's still dominated by the Finns. (That's where Assembly is held, and many other parties)
Venture Capital in Israel by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 02:39 · Score: 0

In 2008 there was 1.9$ billion in VC funds in Israel, with a population of 7.3 Million. That's 260$ per head.
RIM by hey · 2011-08-04 03:35 · Score: 1

Wonder what's happening with those layoff RIM employees?
1. Re:RIM by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 04:23 · Score: 0
  
  Sudden shortage of RIM jobs in the industry? Too bad..
A cultural insight by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 04:30 · Score: 1

VC has traditionally been scarce in Finland, as is evident in the Finnish proverb:

A bird in the hand is better than ten in the bush.
No American would walk away from a tenfold ROI no matter how unlikely the success...
1. Re:A cultural insight by SecurityTheatre · 2011-08-04 14:17 · Score: 1
  
  I have a prospect for a 10-fold return on investment.
  However, the odds that it will pay out are very unlikely.
  Will you invest?
  What if I say please? :-D
Finnish startups? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 04:44 · Score: 0

My brain hurts.
Fri5t psot? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 05:23 · Score: -1

it. Do not share Raadt's stUbborn
Profits by sjbe · 2011-08-04 05:43 · Score: 1

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.
Incompetent CEOs usually lead to brain drain by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 06:19 · Score: 0

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'.
Finnish startups? by 101010_or_0x2A · 2011-08-04 08:00 · Score: 1

Is that a shutdown?
"they"? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-08-04 09:35 · Score: 0

>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.