3 ms·

Finland knows a thing or two, even if not present in the headline.

by nr2x 6y ago

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
Are you Finnish? I'm really curious what happened to all those hardware and electrical engineers developing phones for Nokia/Microsoft before they went bust, respawned as HMD, packed up and moved their production and R&D to China. Did they pivot to other industries in Finland? If so, which industries? Were they valued as much in the other industries or did they take significant pay cuts? Or did they have to pack up and move elsewhere where they would be valued? If so, where? I'm asking since I met a few ex-Nokia people looking for work in Switzerland/Germany/Austria years ago. If anyone knows more I'd like to find out please.
- fsloth 6y ago
  Am not OP. Am Finnish. Basically they went to work to other companies and spun up lot of new ones. There are lots of small and medium sized companies in Finland that are operating in technology and hardware. I presume a majority of them had similar salaries as earlier. Engineers have never been well payed in Finland and Nokia knew the market rate very well. It rewarded few individuals very well, but the general salary range was probably nothing special. Finland has lots of engineering activity - always has had. The problem has been marketing this knowhow to external markets. Explosion of Nokia was a blessing for Finland. It was too large for a country this small, and it started domineering investments in all levels of economy. From geek consumer point of view it is a shame their engineering was run down by poor management. But the company was fixed on this course from it's early years. It basically trusted on two things - that radiotechnology would be it's secret sauce for all eternity, and the main point of competition would be it's logistics network. When the radiotechnology used in handsets became commoditized, China basically levelled the playing field regarding logistics and outsourcing, and the software development inside the company remained a second tier effort, it could have not ended any other way (in retrospect).
- trasz 6y ago
  Lots of them work for Huawei.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    That kinda sucks as EU know-how is propping up the US and Chinese tech giants instead of local ones.
- floatboth 6y ago
  > R&D to China Isn't HMD R&D like "across the street" from the old Nokia building? Also, the telecom equipment side of Nokia still exists as it was, only the phone division went into the whole Microsoft clusterfuck.
- dharma1 6y ago
  I'm Finnish, worked with a bunch of ex-Nokia software engineers on Ubuntu touch after Nokia went bust. AFAIK people generally dispersed, many started to work for US (and some Chinese) companies, and quite a few IoT startups were started, especially in Oulu. https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/10/surviving-nokia-how-oulu-finland-rebounded-from-the-collapse-of-its-largest-employer/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/10/surviving-nokia-how-oulu-... https://www.eetimes.com/life-after-nokia-how-finlands-radio-valley-emerged-from-the-ashes/ https://www.eetimes.com/life-after-nokia-how-finlands-radio-... I'm not sure we'll see a similar size global consumer hardware company from Europe anytime soon. I would love to hear the most innovative, relevant mid-size/large class leading hardware companies HN readers can name in Europe. imec, ASML, Graphcore, ST, Infineon, NXP, ARM (for now) - what else?

Finland knows a thing or two, even if not present in the headline.

by nr2x 6y ago

Finland knows a thing or two, even if not present in the headline.

Are you Finnish? I'm really curious what happened to all those hardware and electrical engineers developing phones for Nokia/Microsoft before they went bust, respawned as HMD, packed up and moved their production and R&D to China. Did they pivot to other industries in Finland? If so, which industries? Were they valued as much in the other industries or did they take significant pay cuts? Or did they have to pack up and move elsewhere where they would be valued? If so, where? I'm asking since I met a few ex-Nokia people looking for work in Switzerland/Germany/Austria years ago. If anyone knows more I'd like to find out please.

fsloth 6y ago
Am not OP. Am Finnish. Basically they went to work to other companies and spun up lot of new ones. There are lots of small and medium sized companies in Finland that are operating in technology and hardware. I presume a majority of them had similar salaries as earlier. Engineers have never been well payed in Finland and Nokia knew the market rate very well. It rewarded few individuals very well, but the general salary range was probably nothing special. Finland has lots of engineering activity - always has had. The problem has been marketing this knowhow to external markets. Explosion of Nokia was a blessing for Finland. It was too large for a country this small, and it started domineering investments in all levels of economy. From geek consumer point of view it is a shame their engineering was run down by poor management. But the company was fixed on this course from it's early years. It basically trusted on two things - that radiotechnology would be it's secret sauce for all eternity, and the main point of competition would be it's logistics network. When the radiotechnology used in handsets became commoditized, China basically levelled the playing field regarding logistics and outsourcing, and the software development inside the company remained a second tier effort, it could have not ended any other way (in retrospect).
trasz 6y ago
Lots of them work for Huawei.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  That kinda sucks as EU know-how is propping up the US and Chinese tech giants instead of local ones.
floatboth 6y ago
> R&D to China Isn't HMD R&D like "across the street" from the old Nokia building? Also, the telecom equipment side of Nokia still exists as it was, only the phone division went into the whole Microsoft clusterfuck.
dharma1 6y ago
I'm Finnish, worked with a bunch of ex-Nokia software engineers on Ubuntu touch after Nokia went bust. AFAIK people generally dispersed, many started to work for US (and some Chinese) companies, and quite a few IoT startups were started, especially in Oulu. https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/10/surviving-nokia-how-oulu-finland-rebounded-from-the-collapse-of-its-largest-employer/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/10/surviving-nokia-how-oulu-... https://www.eetimes.com/life-after-nokia-how-finlands-radio-valley-emerged-from-the-ashes/ https://www.eetimes.com/life-after-nokia-how-finlands-radio-... I'm not sure we'll see a similar size global consumer hardware company from Europe anytime soon. I would love to hear the most innovative, relevant mid-size/large class leading hardware companies HN readers can name in Europe. imec, ASML, Graphcore, ST, Infineon, NXP, ARM (for now) - what else?