- Mar 29, 2018
- 7,099
A positive bit of news that may not be "news". This article illustrates European creativity and ingenuity that he U.S. could learn from.
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In the early days of the mobile phone, Nokia was everywhere—ubiquitous, inescapable, supreme. It created the best-selling 1100, with a keypad like droplets of water; the gray-blue 3310; even the cutting-edge 8810, with a slip-sliding protective cover that felt like the future. You always remember your first: For many people, one of these phones, pre-loaded with the game Snake (or its illustrious successor, Snake II) and the OG ringtone, was it. In 2009, at its peak, Nokia was the 85th largest company in the world.
Today, the firm is doing just fine, though its primary money-makers are less obvious than they once were. The Finnish giant now derives most of its income from those invisible elements of the mobile internet that allow you to access an infinite repository of information from almost anywhere in the world: routers, network processors, base station radio access units, and other whizz-bang components. In 2018, with a revenue of €23 billion, Nokia dropped to 466th place.
The transition from handset juggernaut to invisible technological unguent was not without casualties. Over nine years of downsizing, the company lost its handset business; eliminated thousands of jobs; and saw millions down the drain.
The Finnish town of Oulu, with a present-day population of around 200,000, looked like another certain victim. Formerly a quiet lumber town, it had been buoyed by the rise of Nokia, becoming a regional tech powerhouse in the process. By 2000, the so-called “Oulu miracle” had hit its stride, with more than 15,000 IT jobs in the city. But Nokia’s travails became the town’s: Between 2009 and 2011, the company cut more than 1,000 Oulu jobs, many of which were related to its handset business. Five years later, another 1,000 positions followed.
But contrary to the expectations of local residents and the Finnish media alike, Nokia’s tumble did not take the town with it. Though hailed as a national tragedy, Nokia’s slump hasn’t been the disaster for Oulu many had feared, says Juha Ala-Mursula, a former Nokia executive and present-day head of the city’s economic development scheme.
“I would say the lay-offs were the best thing that happened to Oulu in many years.”
At its height, the company had sucked in the city’s talent like a whirlpool. Now, that same talent has the opportunity to flourish elsewhere, thanks to structured support and intervention from the local government, entrepreneurs, and Nokia itself. It is still the largest employer in town—earlier this year, the company’s Oulu 5G operation was honored by the World Economic Forum as a world leader in the sector—but there are now many more options for enterprising tech workers with a yen to stay in the north.
“I would say the lay-offs were the best thing that happened to Oulu in many years,” says Ala-Mursula.
... You may read the entire piece here:
qz.com
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In the early days of the mobile phone, Nokia was everywhere—ubiquitous, inescapable, supreme. It created the best-selling 1100, with a keypad like droplets of water; the gray-blue 3310; even the cutting-edge 8810, with a slip-sliding protective cover that felt like the future. You always remember your first: For many people, one of these phones, pre-loaded with the game Snake (or its illustrious successor, Snake II) and the OG ringtone, was it. In 2009, at its peak, Nokia was the 85th largest company in the world.
Today, the firm is doing just fine, though its primary money-makers are less obvious than they once were. The Finnish giant now derives most of its income from those invisible elements of the mobile internet that allow you to access an infinite repository of information from almost anywhere in the world: routers, network processors, base station radio access units, and other whizz-bang components. In 2018, with a revenue of €23 billion, Nokia dropped to 466th place.
The transition from handset juggernaut to invisible technological unguent was not without casualties. Over nine years of downsizing, the company lost its handset business; eliminated thousands of jobs; and saw millions down the drain.
The Finnish town of Oulu, with a present-day population of around 200,000, looked like another certain victim. Formerly a quiet lumber town, it had been buoyed by the rise of Nokia, becoming a regional tech powerhouse in the process. By 2000, the so-called “Oulu miracle” had hit its stride, with more than 15,000 IT jobs in the city. But Nokia’s travails became the town’s: Between 2009 and 2011, the company cut more than 1,000 Oulu jobs, many of which were related to its handset business. Five years later, another 1,000 positions followed.
But contrary to the expectations of local residents and the Finnish media alike, Nokia’s tumble did not take the town with it. Though hailed as a national tragedy, Nokia’s slump hasn’t been the disaster for Oulu many had feared, says Juha Ala-Mursula, a former Nokia executive and present-day head of the city’s economic development scheme.
“I would say the lay-offs were the best thing that happened to Oulu in many years.”
At its height, the company had sucked in the city’s talent like a whirlpool. Now, that same talent has the opportunity to flourish elsewhere, thanks to structured support and intervention from the local government, entrepreneurs, and Nokia itself. It is still the largest employer in town—earlier this year, the company’s Oulu 5G operation was honored by the World Economic Forum as a world leader in the sector—but there are now many more options for enterprising tech workers with a yen to stay in the north.
“I would say the lay-offs were the best thing that happened to Oulu in many years,” says Ala-Mursula.
... You may read the entire piece here:
Nokia’s collapse turned a sleepy town in Finland into an internet wonderland
"The lay-offs were the best thing that happened to Oulu in many years."
qz.com
