I've been following Nokia for the past two years and watched the two documentaries about them (they are similar; one has more Finnish). [1] [2]
My conclusions about them are this:
1. They can become a major player in 5G for Europe.
2. The places in Finland where they operated did not become ghost towns as you may have thought.
3. They are still very competent. In fact, when their mobile business was bought out by Microsoft, it appears that they were a leader in car navigation systems. Not sure if MS considered that when doing the takeover and not sure whether they took it over.
4. They have always been a telecom infrastructure player and become more so after the 2010–2012 fiasco. They were working on Linux derived OSs for phones. I always thought they tanked due to their marriage to Symbian and ignorance towards Android. I am not sure anymore; I have become more old school and like people that write their own code.
5. The Finns seem to blame hubris for their downfall. I think even without hubris, you can't really compete against countries with a lot of people and low wages.
6. Finland remains an awesome country. Their engineers are probably better than Germans, but they are 1/10th in number. (Sorry, I like to take on the Germans in a challenge. Maybe it's because they are actually something to take on?)
Nokia was one of the larger European company. A true competitor in the global tech space. Its total collapse is very important for European tech history.
Many of us also really liked what they were doing with N900 and wanted it to continue. But it didn't.
I mean, they still exist. They may have sold off their phone division, but as long as Cisco and Netgear are still tech companies, Nokia is still a tech company.
The headline would be more accurate - though not as punchy - if it spoke of ashes of Nokia's device business, not Nokia as a whole. Microsoft took over the devices but the rest of the company is still there and very much alive. Net sales last year 12 732 M€, profit of continuing operations 1 171 M€. It's not as huge as in 2007, but not doing badly at all.
But indeed there is a lot of startup activity by people who've left Nokia; I joined one that failed, but I'm glad we tried. It would have gnawed my soul if I hadn't joined an attempt when there was the opportunity.
Nokia fits in a bigger picture of large European tech firms which stumbled over the last 20 year, sold off and shut down divisions before radically restructuring and reemerging as a smaller but more nimble companies. What is very worrying however that unlike in the US, which had similar scenarios with HP and IBM, hardly anything close to new giants of the likes of Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon appeared during that timeframe in the EU
Nokia is doing quite well, not only did they use to money to buy back the Siemens part on the Networks business, they now own Bell Labs.
Also despite being only Nokia branded, their Android phones are just as good as ever, and the only Android brand that I actually get updates on, versus the one shot update in a device's lifetime that I have had from other OEMs.
Nokia isn't dead though. They are a top-tier player in network equipment along with Ericsson and Huawei.
The company is profitable, its market cap is around $26 billion USD, and they recently announced a major deal to acquire Alcatel-Lucent. They seem to have survived the amputation of the mobile phone division quite well.
Nokia is still alive and worth about 20 billion euros.
The billions in cash that they made from selling the loss-making mobile devices albatross to Steve Ballmer allowed Nokia to purchase both Siemens’ share of the networks business as well as Alcatel.
NOKIA is pretty much a muster for the future of Europe. Made a headless chicken by US investors that needed to save their investments in Microsoft and going from a dominant force in one emerging market to an afterthought in two years.
The better known part of Nokia for most people was their mobile phone business, which was spun off and sold to Microsoft who then drove it into the ground, but the other parts of the company are still there.
Nokia was on the decline even as early as 2005. The iPhone just exacerbated things. The enterprise division, primarily based in the US was not treated as well as the programs in this article. Many in the enterprise division based in Finland were folded into other groups, which was good.
Also the reorganization under Elop wasn't all warm and fuzzy either, from what friends in Finland told me. Recall the protest over the Windows Phone decision.
I liked Nokia, left on my own, but this warm fuzzy, not always the case. The fact that many started their own companies, etc, is a great thing to learn though.
Nokia exited the consumer market, so they fell off most people's radars. They've continued as a multinational network equipment company with over 100,000 employees, so they do still exist.
As far as I know, this is their first reentry into consumer products since getting out of the mobile phone business.
Microsoft only sabotaged, then bought Nokia's mobile phone division. The rest of Nokia is doing fine making networking equipment and various other things.
> EU lost its only competitive tech company
Spotify, Angry Birds (Finnish even), several Fintechs, sends their regards.
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