Bloomberg Businessweek’s Ashlee Vance heads to Finland for a three-part exploration of this traditionally contented country’s tech industry.
Episode One tackles the critical role Nokia once played in its economy, and the devastating impact Apple’s iPhone had on both. Since then, Finland has managed to revive the sector: Instead of the once-ubiquitous Nokia phone, Helsinki’s vibrant tech scene is now dominated by companies making mobile games like Angry Birds and Clash of Clans.
MacDailyNews Take: Finland had been, like, devastated… There wasn’t much to do. All the bowling alleys had been wrecked, so… it all proceeded and continues to proceed in the way that Steve Jobs, creator of the revolutionary iPhone and industry destroyer, said it would: Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
Finland losing was just business and competition.
Having hubris over their “destruction” is douchiness.
But lo… as it says, they are replacing Nokia with other work. Maybe they are still “the happiest”. Or maybe they always remained happy with the support of their culture and values.
I have many wealthy friends. Most are miserable. It’s their nature.
Nokia like most of the industry at the time were stuck using very old software. They were also focused on the low end market assuming that market share was the way to go.
It took Apple to disrupt the market and as a result provide a far more useful tool to the world that does a lot more than just make phone calls.
The Fins are a high-IQ people, and they adjusted well to the temporary setback.
And the iPhone didn’t spur the rise of Angry Birds and Clash of Clans?
Pssst… Act!
Having watched and read several stories about Nokia, all I can say is that they had it coming.
Management thought they were bulletproof and that the company could do no wrong. And the engineers were subservient to managerial decisions. As such, innovation declined…
Yet one of their own engineers produced a prototype touch screen phone, which management duly knocked back. He watched Steve Jobs unveil the iPhone whilst holding his very own touch screen device. The rest is history.
The iPhone didn’t turn a happy country into a sad one. Nokia did that themselves.