Recent past of Finnish sci&tech includes a bewildering amount of similar cases of wasted potential. Telecommunication is the worst area. Its mega-successes, su

Recent past of Finnish sci&tech includes a bewildering amount of similar cases of wasted potential. Telecommunication is the worst area. Its mega-successes, such as SMS can be described as lucky mistakes, while several very potent innovations have gone to waste in state telco's (TeliaSonera) and cell manufacturers. If a product reached the market, it was often too premature, such as 1999 Benefon Esc GPS-phone (5 years premature), or its launch marketing failed badly. I believe Finland produces second most patents per capita. But lack of funding (esp. in 1-5M range) and lack of marketing/commercialization skills destroys the ample potential. Finns are generally seen as a "country of engineers". This might be the key to understanding why recent extraordinary successes like Skype (Sweden/Estonia) have appeared in neighboring countries. Finland has succeeded lately in open source sw (Linux, MySQL), not much else. I would place a lot of the blaim of not identifying these candidates to the Finnish VC industry. It has been dominated by lazy state controlled institutions. They haven't been greedy(?) enough to invest in big plays. Only safe bets or dumping money to major players such as Nokia.