Because the aim of these kinds of articles is not to create good faith dialogue – it's to draw clicks and to plant the idea in the popular (or in this case business/asset manager) discourse.
Because the aim of these kinds of articles is not to create good faith dialogue – it's to draw clicks and to plant the idea in the popular (or in this case business/asset manager) discourse.
Not sure if it is that or (1) countries have really been burnt by industrial policy in the past and (2) people have a really 1-dimensional picture of Nokia and similar conglomerates. As to (1)...
Exemplary
Not sure if it is that or (1) countries have really been burnt by industrial policy in the past and (2) people have a really 1-dimensional picture of Nokia and similar conglomerates.
As to (1) it's a lot easier to agree on a statement of a problem as opposed to any specific solution. Industrial policy has some success stories but even more failure stores. Most specific solutions have (say) a 20% chance of working and could well make things worse. That is, deciding to fund a "national champion" might not result in a real world beater but might just let a loser lose more and not face the discipline of the marketplace to either shape up or get out of the way.
Probably the most universally regarded solution to a similar problem is Norway's Oil Fund
which has it's own share of controversies but at least it doesn't "invest" in Premier League Football.
As for (2) I think a lot of people don't really appreciate Nokia for anything other than it's brief time in the sun with cell phones. I first encountered it when I was sold a set of Hakkapeliitta R tires for my car in Upstate NY which for me were innovative and legendary at the same time. I could drive like a maniac on icy roads and always have great grip (be more worried around rolling my car than going off the road) Now I got a different car that takes a different sized tire, found out that competitors such as Firestone's Blizzaks have mostly caught up, and it doesn't help that Hakka R's are made in Russia now. But really Nokia is a big conglomerate in Finland that dominates the domestic economy of Finland the way that Samsung does Korea and they were lucky to have a breakout hit with phones.
Whatever it is, every country other than the US has struggled in general purpose computing since the 1990s. I mean, many European countries like the UK (Sinclair, BBC Micro), Italy (Olivetti) and France (Thomson) tried to develop champions in home and office computer which did not survive the 32-bit transition. Japanese conglomerates tried an failed. Since the IBM PC manufacturing and many of the component making has been global but the commanding heights of the industry have been consistently in the US. (Oddly, Japanese firms have been able to make it in the game console business which is not far from general computing, Sony's widely panned entry into the music and movie industries might well have opened doors to the Playstation business it has today. In a lot of cases "leaders" such as Samsung in phones and Microsoft in game consoles seem to be motivated not by rational concerns but by prestige or the desire to kneecap potential competitors... The PS3 could have been a competitor in general purpose computing.)
When smartphones became general computing devices, electronics firms in much of the world were devastated, as was Nokia. Phillips, for instance, inventor of the Compact Cassette, the Compact Disc and numerous consumer products folded it's involvement in consumer electronics and retreated to the high-margin government regulated business of CPAP and MRI machines.
(I see Chinese and Indian researchers doing a lot in e-commerce and recommendation systems and do wonder if there is a "missile gap" in social media and e-commerce and if before long we are talking about Google, Facebook and Amazon the way we talk about MySpace, Kodak and AMC... But unlike Denmark, Finland and Norway those are countries with huge domestic markets that give them an edge as opposed to tiny economies that could be blown up by an influx of global cash.)
You can see though that the danger of putting Semaglutide windfalls into prestige projects is likely to end in making a small fortune by starting with a large fortune so they should talk a lot about the the formulation of the question before jumping on answers.
Note that Nokia got rid of almost all of their businesses except phones a couple decades ago to focus on the phones. Nokian Renkaat (Nokian Tyres) has been its own company since 1988 apparently,...
I first encountered it when I was sold a set of Hakkapeliitta R tires
Note that Nokia got rid of almost all of their businesses except phones a couple decades ago to focus on the phones. Nokian Renkaat (Nokian Tyres) has been its own company since 1988 apparently, and Nokia (the tech giant) sold their last shares in 2003, so nowadays there's no relation between the two companies. Also, due to the war in Ukraine, they no longer manufacture anything in Russia but that's a recent development.
Even then though, even without the tyres and TVs and cables and whatnot, Nokia was an absolutely huge company and employed loads of people here. Less so nowadays, though they're still easily one of the biggest Finnish companies.
Well there's also Nokia Networks, formerly the joint venture Nokia Siemens Networks which makes carrier grade telecom equipment that ends up getting used by NSPs like Verizon, T-Mobile etc.
Well there's also Nokia Networks, formerly the joint venture Nokia Siemens Networks which makes carrier grade telecom equipment that ends up getting used by NSPs like Verizon, T-Mobile etc.
I still remember Nokia fondly for making the indestructible 3310 I live in Canada where three companies run the entire network, and all three have decided to not "support" Nokia's, so I can no...
I still remember Nokia fondly for making the indestructible 3310
I live in Canada where three companies run the entire network, and all three have decided to not "support" Nokia's, so I can no longer really buy them even if they are still good these days I have no idea. When I put support in quotes, I mean, on paper you can spec out a Nokia that uses the same bands or whatever, but if the big three's network doesn't like you then all their support people will shrug and say tough cookies and close your support ticket.
I think it's hard to draw a comparison between Myspace, Kodac and AMC and Google, Facebook and Amazon simply because they've branched out into many industry segments instead of being limited to a...
if there is a "missile gap" in social media and e-commerce and if before long we are talking about Google, Facebook and Amazon the way we talk about MySpace, Kodak and AMC
I think it's hard to draw a comparison between Myspace, Kodac and AMC and Google, Facebook and Amazon simply because they've branched out into many industry segments instead of being limited to a specific industry. Advertising, which is Google and Facebook's biggest revenue stream, is a behemoth (I'm not as informed about Amazon). Besides, they also power entirely too many services that millions rely on. Google has YouTube, Maps, Chrome, Android and Amazon has AWS, Alexa, Twitch. Facebook here is less diverse compared to the other two, but it still has a massive dedicated userbase with Instagram and WhatsApp which it capitalizes on. Unless these companies are broken up with antitrust lawsuits, I don't see these companies going anywhere in the next few decades.
There are a quite a few conglomerates, such as ITT that are no longer with us or live on in name only, often fragmented into several brands such as Nokia and Westinghouse. The various businesses...
There are a quite a few conglomerates, such as ITT that are no longer with us or live on in name only, often fragmented into several brands such as Nokia and Westinghouse.
The various businesses of the modern internet conglomerates vary from highly profitable (Google’s ad operations, AWS) to the marginal (Alexa, Android — Google doesn’t make money on Android so they neglect it, Android phone makers make phones for the same reason Saudi princes run football teams, Android is a gift to phone carriers and Apple who is kept out of antitrust court because it exists)
If Facebook was in a such a secure spot would they be betting the company on the “Metaverse?”. They behave as if all the businesses they have are in borrowed time because the users are going to get old and not be replaced by young ones. (Oddly, watch TV and you wouldn’t believe advertisers are interested in advertising to anyone under 65 and people who’ve been hit by cars and the occasional ad for a car dealer is there because nobody would be hit by a car and need a personal injury lawyer if there were no cars.)
All those companies are haunted by the specter of “enshittification” because they don’t have meaningful competition. For instance AMZN went from the first online store I would go to to the last because of all the scam product listings. I used to get 2 day shipping with Prime, they backed it out to 5 days in a time when every other online store from Target to Adorama has been speeding up shipping to impress me. The thing is I wouldn’t have any self respect if I was paying $120+ a year for a service that is a little bit worse than average instead of a little bit better.
So I canceled Prime and now I have a reason to not shop at Amazon because they harass me to subscribe to Prime again, at least they behave like they understand why I quit and they don’t say anything about shipping (know I’ll dump my cart then and there) and instead go on with a long list of “benefits” only an Amway participant would love to which I have to click “No” and click “No” and click “No” again.
…and it is all like that. Many teens today think being on Facebook is like putting your hand in toilet. One of my favorite YouTubers just received a bunch of content strikes which are driving him and his fans off the platform.
“Enshittification” is in the DNA of all those firms and is going to get worse until real competition arrives and may be too late for them to turn it around.
I’d contrast that to many Chinese companies I’ve dealt with (not necessarily all of them) that really want to impress people with the goods they make and their service such as this lens manufacturer
that makes camera lenses that are oriented towards value, leaving out some features (autofocus, anti shake) and putting every penny into a simple, quality product so often you get a $180 lens that takes pictures like you’ve never seen before. If companies in places like China and India can get into that spirit in other industries like cars our tired conglomerates will only be able to “compete” through protectionism.
It does get kind of addressed though: Seems like the plan is to do nothing
It does get kind of addressed though:
Economy Minister Jakob Ellemann-Jensen denied that Denmark’s situation is comparable to that of Finland and Nokia. Many of the Novo Nordisk’s factories are located abroad, so any severe setback for the company wouldn’t have a drastic effect on domestic employment, he said.
The key question from this headline is "what is Denmark looking to do about it" however that's never addressed in the article at all. Frustrating.
Because the aim of these kinds of articles is not to create good faith dialogue – it's to draw clicks and to plant the idea in the popular (or in this case business/asset manager) discourse.
Not sure if it is that or (1) countries have really been burnt by industrial policy in the past and (2) people have a really 1-dimensional picture of Nokia and similar conglomerates.
As to (1) it's a lot easier to agree on a statement of a problem as opposed to any specific solution. Industrial policy has some success stories but even more failure stores. Most specific solutions have (say) a 20% chance of working and could well make things worse. That is, deciding to fund a "national champion" might not result in a real world beater but might just let a loser lose more and not face the discipline of the marketplace to either shape up or get out of the way.
Probably the most universally regarded solution to a similar problem is Norway's Oil Fund
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway
which has it's own share of controversies but at least it doesn't "invest" in Premier League Football.
As for (2) I think a lot of people don't really appreciate Nokia for anything other than it's brief time in the sun with cell phones. I first encountered it when I was sold a set of Hakkapeliitta R tires for my car in Upstate NY which for me were innovative and legendary at the same time. I could drive like a maniac on icy roads and always have great grip (be more worried around rolling my car than going off the road) Now I got a different car that takes a different sized tire, found out that competitors such as Firestone's Blizzaks have mostly caught up, and it doesn't help that Hakka R's are made in Russia now. But really Nokia is a big conglomerate in Finland that dominates the domestic economy of Finland the way that Samsung does Korea and they were lucky to have a breakout hit with phones.
Whatever it is, every country other than the US has struggled in general purpose computing since the 1990s. I mean, many European countries like the UK (Sinclair, BBC Micro), Italy (Olivetti) and France (Thomson) tried to develop champions in home and office computer which did not survive the 32-bit transition. Japanese conglomerates tried an failed. Since the IBM PC manufacturing and many of the component making has been global but the commanding heights of the industry have been consistently in the US. (Oddly, Japanese firms have been able to make it in the game console business which is not far from general computing, Sony's widely panned entry into the music and movie industries might well have opened doors to the Playstation business it has today. In a lot of cases "leaders" such as Samsung in phones and Microsoft in game consoles seem to be motivated not by rational concerns but by prestige or the desire to kneecap potential competitors... The PS3 could have been a competitor in general purpose computing.)
When smartphones became general computing devices, electronics firms in much of the world were devastated, as was Nokia. Phillips, for instance, inventor of the Compact Cassette, the Compact Disc and numerous consumer products folded it's involvement in consumer electronics and retreated to the high-margin government regulated business of CPAP and MRI machines.
(I see Chinese and Indian researchers doing a lot in e-commerce and recommendation systems and do wonder if there is a "missile gap" in social media and e-commerce and if before long we are talking about Google, Facebook and Amazon the way we talk about MySpace, Kodak and AMC... But unlike Denmark, Finland and Norway those are countries with huge domestic markets that give them an edge as opposed to tiny economies that could be blown up by an influx of global cash.)
You can see though that the danger of putting Semaglutide windfalls into prestige projects is likely to end in making a small fortune by starting with a large fortune so they should talk a lot about the the formulation of the question before jumping on answers.
(Speaking of Japanese game consoles, you might be amused at this game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Novolin which was made to promote NN's insulin products in the 1990s)
Note that Nokia got rid of almost all of their businesses except phones a couple decades ago to focus on the phones. Nokian Renkaat (Nokian Tyres) has been its own company since 1988 apparently, and Nokia (the tech giant) sold their last shares in 2003, so nowadays there's no relation between the two companies. Also, due to the war in Ukraine, they no longer manufacture anything in Russia but that's a recent development.
source
Even then though, even without the tyres and TVs and cables and whatnot, Nokia was an absolutely huge company and employed loads of people here. Less so nowadays, though they're still easily one of the biggest Finnish companies.
Well there's also Nokia Networks, formerly the joint venture Nokia Siemens Networks which makes carrier grade telecom equipment that ends up getting used by NSPs like Verizon, T-Mobile etc.
I still remember Nokia fondly for making the indestructible 3310
I live in Canada where three companies run the entire network, and all three have decided to not "support" Nokia's, so I can no longer really buy them even if they are still good these days I have no idea. When I put support in quotes, I mean, on paper you can spec out a Nokia that uses the same bands or whatever, but if the big three's network doesn't like you then all their support people will shrug and say tough cookies and close your support ticket.
I think it's hard to draw a comparison between Myspace, Kodac and AMC and Google, Facebook and Amazon simply because they've branched out into many industry segments instead of being limited to a specific industry. Advertising, which is Google and Facebook's biggest revenue stream, is a behemoth (I'm not as informed about Amazon). Besides, they also power entirely too many services that millions rely on. Google has YouTube, Maps, Chrome, Android and Amazon has AWS, Alexa, Twitch. Facebook here is less diverse compared to the other two, but it still has a massive dedicated userbase with Instagram and WhatsApp which it capitalizes on. Unless these companies are broken up with antitrust lawsuits, I don't see these companies going anywhere in the next few decades.
There are a quite a few conglomerates, such as ITT that are no longer with us or live on in name only, often fragmented into several brands such as Nokia and Westinghouse.
The various businesses of the modern internet conglomerates vary from highly profitable (Google’s ad operations, AWS) to the marginal (Alexa, Android — Google doesn’t make money on Android so they neglect it, Android phone makers make phones for the same reason Saudi princes run football teams, Android is a gift to phone carriers and Apple who is kept out of antitrust court because it exists)
If Facebook was in a such a secure spot would they be betting the company on the “Metaverse?”. They behave as if all the businesses they have are in borrowed time because the users are going to get old and not be replaced by young ones. (Oddly, watch TV and you wouldn’t believe advertisers are interested in advertising to anyone under 65 and people who’ve been hit by cars and the occasional ad for a car dealer is there because nobody would be hit by a car and need a personal injury lawyer if there were no cars.)
All those companies are haunted by the specter of “enshittification” because they don’t have meaningful competition. For instance AMZN went from the first online store I would go to to the last because of all the scam product listings. I used to get 2 day shipping with Prime, they backed it out to 5 days in a time when every other online store from Target to Adorama has been speeding up shipping to impress me. The thing is I wouldn’t have any self respect if I was paying $120+ a year for a service that is a little bit worse than average instead of a little bit better.
So I canceled Prime and now I have a reason to not shop at Amazon because they harass me to subscribe to Prime again, at least they behave like they understand why I quit and they don’t say anything about shipping (know I’ll dump my cart then and there) and instead go on with a long list of “benefits” only an Amway participant would love to which I have to click “No” and click “No” and click “No” again.
…and it is all like that. Many teens today think being on Facebook is like putting your hand in toilet. One of my favorite YouTubers just received a bunch of content strikes which are driving him and his fans off the platform.
“Enshittification” is in the DNA of all those firms and is going to get worse until real competition arrives and may be too late for them to turn it around.
I’d contrast that to many Chinese companies I’ve dealt with (not necessarily all of them) that really want to impress people with the goods they make and their service such as this lens manufacturer
https://7artisans.store/
that makes camera lenses that are oriented towards value, leaving out some features (autofocus, anti shake) and putting every penny into a simple, quality product so often you get a $180 lens that takes pictures like you’ve never seen before. If companies in places like China and India can get into that spirit in other industries like cars our tired conglomerates will only be able to “compete” through protectionism.
It does get kind of addressed though:
Seems like the plan is to do nothing