“Microsoft Corp.’s move to close the site where Nokia assembled its last mobile phone in Finland leaves it with a skeletal crew in the country, spelling the end of an era for what was once the world’s dominant handset manufacturer,” Adam Ewing and Kasper Viita report for Bloomberg. “Just 900 jobs will be left in Finland after the U.S. software giant slashes another 2,300 workers from the country, a fraction of the 24,000 that Nokia employed in 2000, when it reigned supreme in the global market for mobile devices. Microsoft will discontinue operations in Salo and focus its phone engineering and program management in Espoo and Tampere.”
“Nokia’s rapid decline from a powerhouse of innovation and design to a failing business scrambling to stem a loss of market share has sent shock waves through the Nordic country’s economy. At its peak in 2000, Nokia generated about 4 percent of Finland’s gross domestic product, and its reversal of fortunes hit the country hard as thousands of jobs were lost,” Ewing and Viita report. “Microsoft said Wednesday that demand for the handsets had not met original expectations.”
“‘One of the most successful industrial narratives of our nation ends in Salo,’ Antti Rantakokko, mayor of the southern town that’s widely considered the original hometown of Nokia phones, said in a statement,” Ewing and Viita report. “In its heyday, Nokia’s market value reached $320 billion, and its earnings reports were closely watched by investors. When Apple Inc. revolutionized the industry with its iPhone, Nokia failed to respond… Still, Finns can take solace in the fact that the Nokia name lives on. After the mobile-phone subsidiary was sold, the remaining business retained the name and entered rehabilitation with a focus on telecommunications equipment. As a sign of its regained prowess, Nokia agreed in April to buy French networking-equipment rival Alcatel-Lucent SA in a 15.6 billion-euro ($17 billion) deal. Nokia employed about 60,000 people at the end of last year.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Revolutionary iPhone.
Apple’s competitors should be embarrassed – their products look dated and amateurish next to Apple’s iPhone – which looks like it slipped off the side of the saucer and was mistakenly left behind by alien visitors. Apple’s so-called competitors have been leapfrogged by a wide margin. They should be crying. — MacDailyNews Take, January 10, 2007
Apple’s iPhone is a “niche product.” — Nokia’s then-CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, April 17, 2008. Olli-Pekka is currently “spending time with his family.”
SEE ALSO:
Beleaguered Microsoft axes up to 7,800 employees, writes off $7.6 billion from Nokia deal – July 8, 2015
Palm CEO: ‘We don’t want to follow design fads’; Nokia CEO challenges Apple over iPhone – February 13, 2007
Is Apple building ‘The Device?’ [revisited] – January 09, 2007
Is Apple building ‘The Device?’ – December 10, 2002