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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.
When will politicians stop believing corporate promises (lies)?? Corporations are only in it for themselves, they have zero concern for the communities they are present in.
Giving corporations sweetheart deals for promises of jobs or investment is the worst possible use of public money. It's corporate welfare, except these welfare recipients are spending the check on hookers and blow.
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.
Yup, it's not the USA.
No it is microsofts job not to lie to their employees and governments. If you promise something you should do it.
Nokia was a great company until Microsoft tried to install Windows and it finally broke nokias phones.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Microsoft is a large corporation. They could have made an investment in a new direction using these people. Layoffs are just the quick and easy out.
They didn't have to buy Nokia in the first place. They completely wasted the resource and all their investors money for no net return because they never really wanted to be a phone company, it was just a bullet point on the "How do we measure compared to Google and Apple" powerpoint slide.
It would be nice if corporations saw people as the resources they are rather than just expendable cogs. It's not the workers fault Microsoft's board of directors couldn't figure out how to run a phone division.
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.
If you promise something you should do it.
When you deal with businesses, promises mean nothing unless they are contractual obligations. If they have it in writing, then they should take Microsoft to court. If they don't have it in writing, then they learned a valuable lesson, and maybe next time they will be smarter.
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
A verbal agreement is only worth the paper it's printed on.
I see you missed that part about "The pile of people Microsoft just laid off were definitely in the top half if not the top 20% in their respective fields"
That used to be part of the social contract in the U.S. As long as you did your job, the job was yours. When you retired, you got a pension.
Now, corporations expect the same loyalty but offer none in return.