{"id":53,"date":"2021-07-08T08:41:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-08T12:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iterudio.com\/?p=53"},"modified":"2021-07-08T08:41:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-08T12:41:00","slug":"nokia-microsoft-compaq-hp-thoughts-on-company-size-and-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/?p=53","title":{"rendered":"Nokia-Microsoft, Compaq-HP, thoughts on company size and culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Just watched a documentary “The Rise and Fall of Nokia Mobile<\/a>” – which is available online from various sources (the link is to Tubi).

From a “history of tech” point of view it was interesting. Nokia is one of the companies that “invented” the mobile phone – i.e. they tell the story of “mobile communication” from Nokia’s perspective<\/em>.

That distinction is important – simply because a lot of “co-invention” is always going on. This tendency for multiple companies\/people to be working to solve the same problems, and therefore working on competing technological solutions to those problems – is why we have “patents”\/copyrights and intellectual property laws<\/em> in general.

SO just like (from a business view) who actually wrote a hit song is not as important as whose names are on the copyright filing – who actually invented a technology isn’t nearly as important as what company owns the patent.

Now, I am not saying Nokia wasn’t a special place to work or that Nokia engineers didn’t do incredible things – but the “rise and fall”<\/em> of Nokia tells a very old story.

you know “It’s still the same old story \/ A fight for love and glory”<\/a> – best told over a cold beverage, with a piano playing in the background: “small innovative company with a intimate company culture grows from ‘gimmick company’ to market dominance, fortunes are made and lost, outsiders come in and take control – and ultimately the company is relegated to history”

That is also the “Compaq computers”<\/a> story as well as the Commodore<\/a> story. Of course Compaq was on the decline when HP consumed them (“Compaq” still exists as an HP brand.)

The Nokia documentary – which was made (in part) to help celebrate Finland’s 100 years of independence – takes the view that the “profit hungry Americans came in and ruined Nokia.”

Ok, sure, that IS what happened – but my point is that what happened is an example of the problems with organizational growth not an example of “what is good about Finland and what is bad about the United States.”

e.g. small companies can have a very “team oriented” culture – the competition in these environments tends to be focused outward at “the market” in general or maybe a specific large competitor.

Meanwhile large companies tend to become inefficient bureaucracies with competition being directed internally against other divisions\/sections\/whatever.<\/p>\n\n\n

Slightly funny is that Steve Jobs apparently did to Nokia and the cell phone market what he did to Xerox and the personal computer gui – i.e. he saw they had a superior product and “appropriated” the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n

No, the iPhone is NOT the reason Nokia “fell” – but it certainly hastened the demise as an independent company (Microsoft “acquired” Nokia in 2014 and had “ceased operations” on the last vestiges of Nokia in 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n

ANYWAY – in a “free market” the small and the quick usually end up beating the big and slow – maybe file that under “business cycles 101” – on the plus side many “former Nokia employees” have started companies, where they will try to replicate what was good about Nokia.

The reality is that MOST companies DON’T last – and the process from “vibrant startup” to “old company mentioned in documentaries if remembered at all” looks a lot like the rise and fall of Nokia.

HOWEVER I will say that Finland looks beautiful<\/a> in the documentary – I’m not going there in the winter, but I my desire to visit has increased since watching the documentary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just watched a documentary “The Rise and Fall of Nokia Mobile” – which is available online from various sources (the link is to Tubi). From a “history of tech” point of view it was interesting. Nokia is one of the companies that “invented” the mobile phone – i.e. they tell the story of “mobile communication” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,13],"tags":[21,27],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-computers","category-technology-history","tag-nokia","tag-tech-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}