Finnish Government Criticizes Microsoft For Job Cuts, 'Broken Promises' (softpedia.com) 161
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.
Eh? (Score:2, Insightful)
So, it's Microsoft's job to make busy work for these people instead of letting them go?
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Yup, it's not the USA.
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Let's hope Microsoft know that. Otherwise there might be some very confused Indians arriving in Salo looking for someone to train them.
Re:Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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If you deal with businesses you may expect a half measure of truth. With Microsoft, it's a heaping cup of lies.
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In America, if you have a written contract it _all_ has to be in writing. Verbal contracts are a thing, but verbal additions to written contracts have no force.
Re:Eh? (Score:4, Informative)
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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.
It is true in practice, since 99% of written contracts have an "entire agreement" clause that specifically says that no verbal agreements are valid.
Re:Eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
A verbal agreement is only worth the paper it's printed on.
Re: Eh? (Score:2)
This is easy to detail and validate between two simple parties with a witness. But much harder to hold ground when it comes to two large parties.
Europe has this concept that people are employed for life. That companies have a social responsibility to find the citizens work. This is falling on hard times with globalization.
This is actually a cheap lesson to learn. Better to learn it sooner than later.
Re: Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
The Finnish Government does not realize that American companies make money by getting rid of people. Lopping off ten thousand or so people is done with as much concern as changing the brand of towels in the toilet.
If the Finnish government didn't realize the MO of American companies it is their fault for entering into the deal. Its not like we make it a secret.
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Nokia was having problems to survive amid fierce competition.
They thought partnering with Microsoft would help; having seen the many, many times that Microsoft managed to screw others, we said it wasn't such a good idea.
But like we see here, whenever one brings up that subject, one's mocked as "hater", "paranoid", "troll" -- or worse.
Very well, things went bad and now who's to blame? Microsoft? It's their nature like in the scorpion fable.
We wanted (and still want!) Linux devices. Put another name on it if
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Microsoft has been late to the party so often, always thinking they can dominate the market they know nothing about. Why they could possibly do if they left thngs alone instead of trying to do things the Microsoft way.
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And it is as stupid a practice as trying to flush towels down the toilet!
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Nokia was blamed by Germany in the past, for not going through with promises to have a major manufacturing area there, but the downturn in phones meant they pulled back.
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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.
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It started falling like a rock when Microsoft stooge Stephen Elop joined as CEO in 2010. It had its problems before then but Elop destroyed the company with a series of poor decisions, allowing Microsoft to buy it for a fraction of what it was worth in 2008. Maemo and its successors might have rejuvenated the company, or Nokia could've been making Android handsets by now but instead the brand was tied to the huge dead weight of Windows Phone and was dragged to its doom as a result. It's sad because Nokia
Re:Eh? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Eh? (Score:2)
Yes I did thanks.
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Nokia could have easily staged a recovery with Android. They had a strong reputation for great hardware. When the ship is sinking, do not tie yourself to a big rock.
Re:Eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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They didn't have to buy Nokia in the first place.
And they didn't have to be permitted to buy Nokia in the first place, but that was allowed to happen. So... why? Who got rich[er] there?
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Elop.
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They could have made an investment in a new direction using these people.
Or they could make an investment in a new direction, using new people with the appropriate skill sets. The net number of jobs could be the same, and the jobs would be more stable since they would actually make sense.
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What is typically available in large numbers in the unemployed pool is the bottom half.
That is why you should avoid hiring unemployed people, who are just someone else's rejects. Instead, you want to steal employees from other companies, or hire people directly out of school.
Re:Eh? (Score:4)
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"
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Microsoft is a large corporation. They could have made an investment in a new direction using these people..
But layoffs are the quick and easy way to help out the share price in the short term. Investing in a new direction with these, or new, people is a longer term strategy that doesn't help the share price near term. In fact it probably hurts it. Of course it is probably better for the company and society in the long term but unfortunately most corporate leaders (and politicians) are only interested in the short term results.
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But layoffs are the quick and easy way to help out the share price in the short term.
This, so very much this. Large corporations barely exist anymore for any purpose other than churning the short term stock. Nobody "invests" in a company anymore, they gamble and hedge on femtosecond stock trades by computer algorithms. It's pathetic.
The stock market should be treated as the gambling establishment it's become and be taxed comparably. Maybe then people will actually invest money in long term growth again instead of trying to get rich before it all burns to ashes.
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Just lolling at your wording.
I wish corporations saw people as people. How low we've sunk where being seen as a resource is a noble goal :)
On the greater point, I completely agree though. Few things throw your perspective into flux when good hardworking talented people are just thrown away by corporations.
We all get it. No money assigned to their division or project. It just reeks.
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This "Embrace and then Kill" trick is an old trick of Microsoft.
Embrace Nokia then KILL it. Microsoft killed that Finnish company, Nokia, because one Finnish kid named Linus Torvalds destroyed Windows cash flow.
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NOKIA ousted MS from dominating smartphones by establishing Symbian Foundation and getting all major players onboard. Showing middle finger to Finland, Linus & MeeGo was just a bonus, ra*ing NOKIA was a much more satisfying dominance thingy for MS.
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All Microsoft needs to do is realize that there is a lot of pent-up demand for a top-notch, modern Linux distro that doesn't force systemd on its users.
Well, I realized the other day that I should be the Queen of England, but here we are.
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Switching to Microsoft over SystemD is like saying you should saw off your leg because your toenail fell off.
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Naw, the decline is because they put so much hope into a single company. They are diversified but not enough. There's a lot of engineering skills there.
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To anyone thinking of doing business with Microsoft I have only one piece of advice: Get it in writing.
But I've already got it in writing. See? Here it is, in .DOCX format, stored in Office 365.
We'll do whatever we damn well want, whenever we want, HOWever we want.
Wait, I don't remember it saying that before.
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Except that Microsoft dictated what products Nokia would make! Or Elop did, as the cuckoo's egg from Microsoft.
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No wonder their economy is in the toilet and Microsoft is getting the hell out of Dodge. Why would anyone want to operate a business under those kind of regulations? For once, I can't blame Microsoft.
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They did make promises to invest, and reneged on that.
Re: Eh? (Score:1)
Same old MS (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course it doesn't end well for you guys. It never does. You really can't be surprised by their ethics at this point. Now bend over while we force-install this mobile OS on your desktop!
Corporate lies... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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When will politicians stop believing corporate promises (lies)
Maybe when politicians will stop making false promises (lies)? Why would politicians strongly condemn something they're doing all the time...
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I'm sure their checks cleared.
Re:Corporate lies... (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
Re:Corporate lies... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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The Microsoft plan all along was to remove a 3rd contender. And push it to use Windows OSs altogether. So they manage to succeed at removing the 3rd option, with the unfortunate consequence that it didn't make them a strong contender in the mobile market. But you know how those C Suit clowns work. They only want some results to show for their next 10 million bonus.
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From upthread. Nokia net sales:
2008 : 50.71
2009 : 40.98
2010 : 42.45
2011 : 38.66
2012 : 30.18
2013 : 12.71
MS bought them in 2014. You are apparently using an interesting definition of 'expanding'. Care to share? We can use a laugh.
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I think Elop took over in 2010. The rapid decline started after that.
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How long is their product pipeline?
20%/year isn't already a rapid decline?
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I think Elop took over in 2010. The rapid decline started after that.
The rapid decline was already well underway. If Nokia had instead become a generic Android phone shifter, their profit margins would have gone way down, and there is no way they could have continued to support such a large workforce, and they certainly would not need Symbian developers. There is no realistic scenario where these people would have kept their jobs. Microsoft certainly accelerated the implosion, but they were not the root cause.
Re:Corporate lies... (Score:4, Interesting)
If Nokia had instead become a generic Android phone shifter, their profit margins would have gone way down, and there is no way they could have continued to support such a large workforce, and they certainly would not need Symbian developers. There is no realistic scenario where these people would have kept their jobs. Microsoft certainly accelerated the implosion, but they were not the root cause.
The point is exactly that Nokia was _not_ trying to be a generic Android phone shifter, but the third contender (or fourth considering RIM) with Meego. Obviously they did not need all those Symbian developers, that's why they bought Qt and made a deal with Intel and the Linux Foundation over a Linux system for mobile devices and then hired a lot of MeeGo developers. Since MeeGo was designed to make a smooth transition from Symbian, there was indeed a realistic scenario where those people would have kept their jobs: the success of MeeGo. And since MeeGo could capitalize on the success of Symbian (it still had a 30% market share in early 2011), it had more chances at succeeding than WP.
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They were going to be Meego, Maemo. Better than any crappy Windows phone and potentially real competition against Android or iPhone. Symbian developers were in the minority at Nokia. It was an engineering company and not a stupid apps producer. They had a respected research group (that Microsoft did not buy, they wouldn't want actual smarts tainting their image).
Yes the old style phones were declining. Android was only one problem, bigger problem was losing out their core non smart phone business to ch
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From upthread. Nokia net sales: 2008 : 50.71 2009 : 40.98 2010 : 42.45 2011 : 38.66 2012 : 30.18 2013 : 12.71
MS bought them in 2014. You are apparently using an interesting definition of 'expanding'. Care to share? We can use a laugh.
Just three facts: Elop's Burning Memo and the M$ deal are from February 2011 [businessinsider.com], the financial crisis of 2008 put the world economy in recession in 2009 [wikipedia.org] and we're talking about the mobile devices division.
In 2009 Nokia as a whole (it was not just a cellular phone maker, but an industrial conglomerate with many divisions) suffered from the financial crisis, so it was hit hard like many other companies, but it expected to recover and grow in 2010 and it grew in effect (operating profit was up 73%) and then t
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They expected to grow but were wrong. MS has nothing to do with the larger Nokia.
Face facts. Nokia was eating shit before MS came into the picture. Stuck at feature phones.
If Nokia was so healthy and growing before MS bought them, why did they sell so cheap?
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The majority of companies world wide were in trouble at that time. There was the recession if you're too young to remember. The investors probably went along with a futile buyout because it would get them a short term return even though it accelerated the demise. Price goes up a bit, sell it all, sit back and watch the ship sink. Microsoft guaranteed it would fail, Nokia if left alone at least had a chance of success with self determination.
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Face facts. Nokia was eating shit before MS came into the picture. Stuck at feature phones.
If Nokia was so healthy and growing before MS bought them, why did they sell so cheap?
Because Elop and the M$ deal of 2011. I know that English is not my first language, but I think that what I wrote is pretty clear even if it may sound clunky: "After the Elop takeover and the M$ deal it tanked hard". I'm referring to the facts of 2011, not to the cheap acquisition of 2014: Nokia sealed its fate with the deal of 2011 when ex-Microsoft Elop burned down Qt, MeeGo and all the Symbian legacy to get in bed with M$ (perhaps a bed he had never left). As a consequence of that deal, Nokia as company
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Gees cherry pick data much. http://www.statista.com/statis... [statista.com] A better spread showing your chosen starting point as the very peak of Nokia. Also never forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] burning platform memo (an accident or done on purpose) and he go paid a bonus for the sell out and M$ paid for 70% of that bonus. Of course Elop is now at Telstra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] so you can bet a windows anal probe 10 only policy and forcing that on end users and a convoluted conspiracy to take over
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Microsoft was inept and incompetent. They knew *nothing* about phones and yet dictated that Nokia cancel all work on their own phones, even those already in beta testing and ready to ship, and start working on crappy Windows phones. If they really did try to make money then Microsoft leadership are utter morons. If their plan was to destroy Nokia then they were geniuses.
Besides, they did make promises which they are breaking. It's not stated but was probably in writing though maybe not in contract form.
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I agree and I disagree.
1. Corporations are in it for themselves, much like you are in it for yourself. You can call yourself charitable and looking out for the other guy, and you may be the most generous person in the universe, but... when times get tough in one way or another, you'll take care of you first.
2. Corporations (should) have competition. This is what makes them have to do the right thing, rather than simply feed their own bellies. If people don't like what Company A is doing, they can go to
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Perhpas they could pass a law to make corporations keep their word or risk substantial penalties?
They already have that. It is called "contract law". Except MS didn't sign a contract with Finland, so they didn't actually "promise" anything.
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When will politicians stop believing corporate promises (lies)?
Who said he believed anything? In English we call this scapegoating. Nobody intelligent doesn't know that Microsoft is untrustworthy and deceptive. If someone chooses to go with Microsoft, you can be sure that they are getting a kickback. Only complete morons with a total disregard for history could think that Microsoft might be true to their word.
Giving corporations sweetheart deals for promises of jobs or investment is the worst possible use of public money.
Oh, so you do get how the game is played. I was worried there.
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Because in Europe the governments usually aren't so rigidly hands-off like the laissez-faire utopia of America. They were naive in assuming Microsoft wouldn't blatantly lie to them and work against their own interests by creating crappy products, work against the interests of the customers by making products no one wanted, and working against the interests of their workers.
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Euthanasia is an ugly word. Call it a 75th trimester abortion.
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They made their bed with Microsoft let them lie on it.
Finland made a deal with Microsoft and didn't do its due diligence by looking at every other deal Microsoft has made with other companies?
C'mon, even Slashdotters were calling this outcome when Elop got "hired". I could go find the links, but it was so damn obvious to any industry watcher that it's hardly worth the sport.
I guess the only wildcard now is whether Nadella thinks it's still a good idea to go after Google with the Nokia patents. Ballmer tota
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Clearly there should be NO more loans to Greece. After all the EU is just making things worse, right?
That's not what you want? You want more loans with no conditions? Expand the government to be 90% of the Greek economy? Lower the full pension age to 40? Good luck.
The only answer is to kick the greeks to the curb. Let them borrow Drachma.
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So Greece laying [bbc.com] about the budget deficit when joining EU was not Greece fault?
Isn't it true that Stefanos Manos (former Greece minister of finance) said [theatlantic.com] " the Greek national railway was so poorly run and its public employees so overpaid that it would be cheaper for the state to shut down the railway entirely and give every customer taxi fare to their destination." ?
Isn't it true that Tassos Giannitsis (former minister of labor) said [wsj.com] "When I told my colleagues in the cabinet about the reforms I was prop
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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, obvious
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The problem with Greece and Finland is the same. The Euro. It isn't working. You just need to look at the recoveries in e.g. Iceland or Sweden to see counter-examples of that.
The austerity policies have been a disaster and the idea that you can use the same standards and business methods in countries with dissimilar geography, language, natural resources, etc, etc is also a disaster.
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You missed the first step in the causality chain: The problems with the euro were caused by Greece being allowed to join despite their economy not fulfilling the requirements. They had cooked the books and Germany let them. Bad for the euro and worse for Greece.
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Greece could have left the Euro at any point, but it is highly unlikely that would have given any better result.
Other countries like Germany and Finland (among others) could have helped more, but they have voters to sell it to.
And it is a hard sell to give money to a country that cooked the books, and full of people like you who blame everyone but themselves! (and gullible enough to vote for a "no" that had not even the pretense of a credible plan behind it, sorry but that doesn't make it look like the kind
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What other countries? The media has only talked about the crisis in Greece. To be honest, international media is so, shall we say "colorful" in its interpretation of the complex issues that there is little possibility of gaining a realistic picture of the events and issues. German science documentary states how (of course only German-speaking) educated young Greece as fleeing the country, and the some other sources blame only one accountant for lying about Greek economy during the EU negotiations. What I sa
Apple killed Finland. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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Not Apple, Google killed Nokia. Nokia used to be like Samsung is today, selling a variety of generally good, reliable phones to suit any purse. Then Android came along, demonstrated how terrible Nokia's OS is and what he benefits of a common platform are (mainly many more and much cheaper apps, combined with competition driving features). Nokia's main market was dived up amongst Samsung, HTC, LG and many others all running Android.
By the time Nokia realized what was happening it was too late, and as you men
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No Elon killed Nokia. The decision to go to microsofts for operating system and not go for Android was a huge mistake.
Nokia had a strong trademark and could have become the #1 player in the Android market. And thus keept on as the #1 mobile phone seller. After the 2011 letter to the employers, noone took Nokia seriously and their market share plumbered.
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But it is not just nokia but the paper industry. the iPad, Kindle, and the internet in general all have greatly reduced the use of paper for things like magazines, catalogs, and books.
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Maybe multimillionaire Stephen Elop has an answer (Score:1)
Every day he must wake up laughing in disbelief at how he got rewarded for destroying Nokia.
Does anyone remember? (Score:5, Informative)
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?
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Haha yes, Bochum - Nokia. Turnabout is a bitch sometimes.
Local Seattle Press Response (Score:3)
Why couldn't they redeploy people? (Score:2)
I know big companies are all about profits, but I highly doubt that everyone at Nokia was completely useless and unable to fill a spot in Microsoft after they took over. I have lots of big-company IT experience, so it's not like I'm totally unaware that there is always some dead wood. I've seen people "parked" in jobs in some benevolent companies because the divisions they were managing got killed 2 years before their retirement. I've seen people who watch cat videos all day and perform one or two simple ta
Going with Windows was the biggest fail (Score:2)
The Finnish government is just naive as is usual. Nothing new there. There was plenty of talks of data centers but I guess it was just the desperate grasping the straws in hopes of getting some crumbs. Whatever.
As for Nokia, going with Windows Phones was maybe the biggest mistake they could ever have made, and plenty of Finns were happy to point that out when it happened. Of course, Finns tend to complain about everything, so that does not necessarily mean anything. But Nokia had a very long time to get int
Microsoft seems to busy or dont want more wel work (Score:1)
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Getting rid of employees here in Finland is actually quite easy. There is a process you are legally bound to follow, but it just takes 60 days and the end result is that you can let go any employees you have. If you just have a single employee and want to sack him, that can be more difficult, but these massive layoffs are easy. For long time employees, you have to give several months notice when getting rid of them, but OTOH if you want they will work for you during that time.
"The safety net" gives a person
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Finland isn't part of Scandinavia, you fat moron.
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Even commies know better than expropriating failed ventures.
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