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Finnish Government Criticizes Microsoft For Job Cuts, 'Broken Promises' (softpedia.com)
jones_supa writes: Softpedia reports: "Microsoft has recently announced a new round of job layoffs at its Mobile unit in Finland, as it moves forward with its restructuring and reorganization plan following the acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services unit. The Finnish government has criticized Microsoft for turning to more job cuts in the country, pointing out that the company has a huge responsibility to help those who are being let go. Microsoft's latest job cut round included 1,850 people, 1,350 of which are said to be working in Finland. 'I am disappointed because of the (initial) promises made by Microsoft,' Finance Minister Alexander Stubb was quoted as saying by Reuters. 'One example is that the data center did not materialize despite the company's promise.'" He refers to Microsoft's promise in 2013 to invest $250 million in a data center located in Finland that was specifically meant to provide services to European customers. All of these worries are not unfounded as the employment situation in Finland is still quite terrible, and the decline of Nokia's former phone business certainly exacerbates the situation.
It was not intentional but Finland's economy is.was very dependent on two things cell phones and paper. Yes Nokia blew it when they sold to Microsoft and did not embrace their own Linux os that looked so promising, forked Android like Amazon, or went with Android. I think Nokia could have had a real winner with an Android phone with a Nokia camera. Nokia hardware was always good as are the cameras.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Back when Nokia cashed in in Germany to build a plant, then when the "incentives" were running out they closed shop and moved to Romania, what was Finland's reaction when Germans (plus the German government of that time) complained and called Nokia things I can't repeat in decent company?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Perhaps the Finnish shouldn't have sold Nokia in the first place.
If they hadn't, these people would have lost their jobs long ago. It's not like Nokia was prospering before the MS takeover.
Perhaps the Finnish shouldn't have sold Nokia in the first place.
If they hadn't, these people would have lost their jobs long ago. It's not like Nokia was prospering before the MS takeover.
It was expanding less than their main rivals (Samsung and Apple), but it was still expanding. After the Elop takeover and the M$ deal it tanked hard. It is not difficult to see how badly it was mismanaged under the Elop and then M$ rule: "we scrap Linux, Qt and all the plan we made years ago investing billions, but the WP7 models will be ready in 9 months, so for 9 months we have nothing to put on the market", six month later "WP8 is the new shit, so the WP7 models that we are selling in the next months are already obsolete, wait one year more for the serious stuff", two years later "WP8? Scrap that shit (I said it was the shit, no?), it will be all W10 in the future". Nokia was really strong in the emerging markets with their feature phones and low-end smartphones, but M$ wanted to tread the Apple route and this is the result.
Net sales from Nokia worldwide (billion euros) :
2008 : 50.71
2009 : 40.98
2010 : 42.45
2011 : 38.66
2012 : 30.18
2013 : 12.71
Nokia was falling like a rock when Microsoft bought it. Saying Microsoft broke Nokia is a completely dishonest comment.
If the US legal system is not completely divorced from its inheritance of English Common Law, then I suspect that this isn't actually true. Written and verbal contracts are not so dissimilar in common law, the requirement is that a 'meeting of minds' has taken place. The written contract exists to provide evidence of this. Verbal agreements are problematic because there is a lack of evidence, however a witnessed verbal agreement can carry the same weight as a written one if the witnesses are willing to testify on behalf of one of the parties. Written contracts exist to avoid the need for this and the reliance on potentially faulty memories of the involved parties.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Did you read the numbers? Their sales dropped by 20% from 2008-2009. There was a slight up-tick in 2010, so blaming the CEO who took over in 2010 is nonsense. Nokia had a decent kernel and a crappy userland for their smartphone range in 2005. Their solution was to replace the kernel with Linux and to have a dozen teams compete internally on a new userland, each with far more interest in sabotaging the others than on producing something to compete externally. In hindsight, adopting Windows Phone was a bad idea (though largely because Microsoft failed to get buy-in from third party app developers), but Nokia didn't have anything internal to compete with iOS and Android and their attempts to develop something were tearing the company apart internally. They basically had the choice of Android or Windows Phone. The margins in the Android handset market are tiny - even in 2010, few companies other than Google and Samsung were making money - and there was little competition in the Windows Phone market.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Sorry to hear about your predicament but blaming Finland is ridiculous. Finns gave more aid per capita to Greece than any other nation in the euro zone so the fact that Finland had to play tough was a simple necessity for any politician that wanted to get reelected. The number one reason for Greece's predicament is that the books were cooked when Greece wanted to join and Germany deliberately turned a blind eye to it to ensure that the euro zone was as large as possible from the very beginning. Now, obviously it seems unfair when minimum unemployment benefits in Finland are higher than many worker's salaries in Greece (or Spain for that matter) and perhaps there would've been a better way to reform the Greek economy. However, it would be ridiculous to expect more from the EU without some terms and conditions.l