“Finland’s prime minister suggested on Monday that Apple could be to blame for the demise of its two biggest industries, which in turn led to an economic downturn and a ratings downgrade for the Nordic country,” Matt Clinch reports for CNBC. “‘We have two champions which went down,’ Alexander Stubb told CNBC Monday. As well as the technology firm Nokia, he explained that the paper industry in Finland had fallen on hard times.”
“‘A little bit paradoxically I guess one could say that the iPhone killed Nokia and the iPad killed the Finnish paper industry, but we’ll make a comeback, [Stubb said],” Clinch reports. “Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Finland’s sovereign debt rating to AA+ from AAA on Friday. It cited weak development, exposure to sanctions-hit Russia and said it could experience “protracted stagnation” due to its aging population, shrinking workforce and weakening external demand.”
Clinch reports, “Stubb told CNBC that his government needed to work harder and quicker and continue the structural reforms. Health care, pensions and municipal budgets are three areas which are key and have already seen some reform, according to Stubb. ‘We just have to keep at it,’ he said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Which reminds us:
Apple’s iPhone is a “niche product.” — Nokia’s then-CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, April 17, 2008
Before the iPhone, Nokia was making ok phones an people thought it was the best phones. After the iPhone launch the public realized how crap Nokia phones were.
Nokia kill themselves. They only can kill their poor judgment. Now it belongs to Microsoft which is adding the last nail to the coffin.
I had a Nokia phone and it worked pretty good. It was a cell phone got a camera, computer or music player.
It was small and easily fit in my pocket.
Now I have a powerful computer, camera, video camera, telecommunication device, navigation device, web surfing device, music player and more. And it’s two years old and works great. Change kills the unprepared.
Got = NOT. Darn spell checker.
‘Got = NOT. Darn spell checker.’
Check before posting – have patience Norm.
Even before iPhone, I realized Nokia made crap phones. I never upgraded mine as much as I do with iPhone, because it was basically the same phone in a different casing.
I had no idea the Fins could be so whiny. Did they really expect the world to keep coming to them for the same old crap once a better phone was made? If they offered good workers and cheap taxes like china, they might get Apple to build some of the phones there. Why do you think Apple goes to china for its production facilities? Want the business? Copy china, not Apple.
Blaming Apple for Nokia’s shortsightedness and shortcomings and a general trend away from paper is ridiculous. But there it is.
The paper industry was already failing due to email, scanners, and a little-known computer program called Adobe Acrobat. Just ask all the empty paper mills in Wisconsin.
As for Nokia, all it ever really made was pretty good and durable feature phones. It never made anything worthwhile in the smart phone arena, even when its competition consisted of Windows Mobile and Blackberry phones. Nokia was fat, happy and content to sit on its successes, which is why Apple destroyed the public’s desire for a Nokia phone when it introduced the iPhone.
Microsoft killed Nokia
Yeah remember before MS how easy it was to:
1. Sync your Nokia with your computer address and calendar
2. Buy, sell, distribute & create awesome apps
3. Use their “unbelievable” music/media store
4. Transfer info from your old Nokia to your new Nokia
Me neither.
Remember how before Microsoft’s sleeper agent… Err, I mean former employee Stephan Elop became CEO, Nokia made competent cellphones?
Remember how after Stephan Elop became CEO, Nokia started making nothing but Windows Phones and then promptly died because nobody wants Windows Phones?
I’m sorry, Nokia never made competent cellphones.
Things that should have been drop-dead simple–such as transferring your contacts from your computer to your phone–were totally convoluted or impossible. That was unforgivable in the year 2000, much less 2007.
Neither Nokia nor just about any other handset maker, saw such simple tasks as important to using a cell. It’s almost as if they were completely isolated from the rest of technology.
‘Microsoft killed Nokia’
Nokia killed Nokia.
I don’t understand why so many people have such fond memories of Nokia, calling the phones “indestructible” and blah blah blah. Maybe in Europe they were. But in the US they were the shit brand you could get at the gas station with your Doritos and Red Bull. I had several Nokias in the early 2000s and never had one that lasted for a full year. They would all just stop working for some odd reason eventually. People remember them as better than they were. They were the cheap garbage phones in the U.S.
The sharp downfall of Nokia is one of the most astounding things in history. I’ll never forget how the world changed on January 9, 2007.
“An iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator. These are not three separate things…”
Steve’s master stroke!
And the beautiful iconic illustrative OS that never gets old … sigh.
I’m sure Nokia sitting on their laurels for years without any significant new innovations had nothing to do with it.
Damn that evil thing called logic getting in the way.
Too Finnish To FAIL?
Nokia is the blame for Nokia not making enough money for Finland, not Apple.
As for paper, well . . .
Yes. And now Finland is running out of other people’s money (OPM). It was good while it lasted. Now, they are up the creek without a paddle.
all countries fail for lack of trees except,,,,,
oh wait there is another country we can exploit,,,,,,
Complacency and a CEO asleep at the wheel not looking out for dangers on the road ahead is always a corporate killer.
When light bulbs replaced gaslights/candles and the Model T ran faster than horses/burros … yes indeed, some economy players decline while others prosper. Been going on for all time …
USA! USA! USA!
Article gets +10 entertainment point for all the blathering Fandroids flipping out about it.
When Steve announced the iPhone, I knew that Nokia is Finnish.
The guy didn’t blame Apple.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102081405
Bwaaaaaa ha ha, losers. If you can’t innovate, Apple will annihilate. Have a nice day Finland!
Idiotic!
True culprit was Nokias leadership for failing to see where the world was going to. The final nail to the coffin was Steve Flops selection as CEO who achieved world record for losing 3 million a day of the company market value to make it easy for Micro$oft to buy the remains…😖
With one of the best educated populations in the world, Finland will rise again.
With that aging population, shrinking workforce and generous socialist programs, Finland is doomed.
hmm…sounds like a place I know.
A shiver just ran down my spine.
relax, ‘Bama will save us.
No, the dopes running Nokia are responsible. Is really that hard to put the blame on your own people for not knowing how to react to new technology? Putting the blame on Apple is like the guys using rocks putting the blame on the guys who invented spears. Nokia is at fault for patting itself on the back for being successful while new technology was being invented.
The Prime Minister is a bonehead for even suggesting such a thing and did nothing more then shame his country.
What Stubb actually did, was being honest about what really happened.
He doesn’t blame Apple, he just notices that things changed. Apple just happened to be the driving force behind that change.
I find it refreshing to hear someone who says things as they are and not tries to confuse the matter with political or technical mumbo jumbo.
He actually says: “iPhone was that much better” and “The iPad (i.e. the new technologies which have lowered the demand for printed matter) has made paper less needed”. “The world around us has changed, so we need to change”.
I call that being honest, not boneheadedness,
Imagine what MS or Samsung would have said… or a number of other politicians.
As for Nokia, Elop and Kallasvuo had nothing to do with the end result, they were just there after it was already waaay to late. The one to really blame is ex CEO Jorma Ollila, who was pulling the ropes all the way to the end. One could see that coming since the early 2000’s.
As for Nokia’s phones. They were great. Simply the best. But not in 2007, nor in 2000. In 1995, yes.
Nokia had ZERO vision for smartphones:
“Between 2004 and 2007—the years leading to Apple’s first iPhone launch—Nokia’s total research and development spend was €17.1 billion ($22.2 billion at today’s exchange rate), against Apple’s $2.5 billion in the same period.
So Nokia spent nine times more than Apple on R&D during those years. While noting this, one should keep in mind that Nokia’s sole focus was on making mobile devices and wireless network equipment, while Apple, by mid-2007, had only just started shipping its first iPhones and was still generating most of its revenue from its range of Mac computers and iPods.”
Samsung killed Nokia by making copies of iPhones and because Finns stuck with their Nokia phones till the ship sunk it also took down the whole nation. Normally app developers would have produced apps for healthcare, tourism etc. and with the help from the local users could have made some killer apps, but no, everybody had a Nokia phone so now the country is still back in 2008. Of course it didn’t help when Apple kept Finland in the dark as long as it could to make sure those engineers could not use iPhones as their new tool to take over the world.
In other words, Apple (will be) credited with Finland’s renewed determination to make better products and reimagine its paper industries.
I wish Finland success. Facing the truth is a very good start. As the Bible says “The truth will set you free”
Ironically Apple is beginning to have blood on it’s hands not only from companies, but from entire countries.
S. Korea next?
Nokia made great business phones and consumer phones.
Blackberry took the business market and then Apple took first the high end and then gradually the business / professional market.
Palm made great PDAs. Timex/Swatch and others made loads of digital watches. Intel and loads of Far East companies made Netbooks. The point is that all were overtaken either directly or as a consequence of the iPhone.
Companies need to morph their business as technology delivers advances – that’s why the bigger firms buy the start-ups for what seems like stupid money. Unfortunately, sometimes it is just that, stupidly large sums and as a result the parent company takes a hit.
Nokia made crap, They shot themselves in the foot. Apple made better products and they didn’t keep up – so bye
Yeah it seems we need to be apologetic to Finkand for moving technology forward and not let stagnating companies like Nokia continue to rule, stifling the world economies. IPhones and the like created many more jobs and jobs for Developers. Nokia phones were always a dead end with zero change and innovation in sight. The Apple lesson is “Be prepared to preempt and cannibalize yourself before others do it for you.”
No. Well at least at first the Nokia phone was better than the Gen 1 phone as a straight phone – it just didn’t have the interface or do all the other functions.
Particularly the GPRS before 3G coverage got going
Wait, isn’t this the same guy who blamed Microsoft for the country’s economic woes about 6 months ago?