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Nokia Mobile: We Were Connecting People
Nokia Mobile - Matkapuhelimen Tarina
2017 · Film · documentary · 91 min
Directed by Arto Koskinen
Once upon a time there was a large Finnish company called Nokia that manufactured the world’s best and most innovative mobile phones. Nokia’s annual budget was larger than that of the Government of Finland and their phones spread everywhere and changed the whole culture of communication. But then something changed. Film portrays the rise and fall of Nokia and the Finnish mobile phone industry. Nokia engineers, designers and managers tell their story about the creation, success and downfall of the Finnish mobile phone.
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I've been following Nokia for the past two years and watched the two documentaries about them (they are similar; one has more Finnish). [1] [2]
My conclusions about them are this:
1. They can become a major player in 5G for Europe.
2. The places in Finland where they operated did not become ghost towns as you may have thought.
3. They are still very competent. In fact, when their mobile business was bought out by Microsoft, it appears that they were a leader in car navigation systems. Not sure if MS considered that when doing the takeover and not sure whether they took it over.
4. They have always been a telecom infrastructure player and become more so after the 2010–2012 fiasco. They were working on Linux derived OSs for phones. I always thought they tanked due to their marriage to Symbian and ignorance towards Android. I am not sure anymore; I have become more old school and like people that write their own code.
5. The Finns seem to blame hubris for their downfall. I think even without hubris, you can't really compete against countries with a lot of people and low wages.
6. Finland remains an awesome country. Their engineers are probably better than Germans, but they are 1/10th in number. (Sorry, I like to take on the Germans in a challenge. Maybe it's because they are actually something to take on?)
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5654050/
[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8717008/