Nokialand
Nicolas Fogelholm

I guess you haven´t heard of NokiaLand before? The naming
NokiaLand has to do with the worlds big-gest handset
manufacturer Nokia and Finland, the country it comes from.

Nokia

Nokia has not always been a world leader in cell phones,
digital technologies, telecommunications networks, wireless
data solutions and high tech gadgets like the Nokia 770
Internet Tablet. Some 100 years ago the company was
manufacturing paper, toilet paper, galoshes, tires and
raincoats.

Finland

Thanks to Nokia Finland has become one of the fastest-growing
and most prosperous economies in Europe. And Nokia phones have
a dominant market position on its home market. This is why
Finland is sometimes referred to as NokiaLand.

In the 1980s Finland was best known for its paper and pulp
industries and long dark winters. At the same time Nokia made
the decision to shift its company focus from timber, tires, and
rubber boots to mobile phones. Good move - today the company
sells more phones than any other company in the world.

The Nokia success story had an enormous impact on the finnish
economy. Nokia increased the finnish GDP by more than 1.5
percent in 1999 alone. In 2004 Nokia's share of the Finnish GDP
was 3.5 percent and accounted for almost a quarter of Finnish
exports in 2003. Last year more than 20 000 people were
employed by Nokia in Finland which is roughly 2 percent of the
people in the Finnish business sector. Also several tiny
companies such as Perlos have grown into large ones as Nokia
subcontractors.

As Nokia´s profits grew, the Nokia share price increased and
this also created a large number of new very rich households in
NokiaLand – thanks to Nokia.

The President

Believe it or not there was a secret plan some 5 years ago in
NokiaLand to put Jorma Ollila, CEO of Nokia as president of
Finland. This did not work out, but if it had we surely would
have had our NokiaLand. The story was revealed when Sauli
Niinistö published his memoirs this summer. He writes that he
had asked Jorma Ollila, the chief executive of Nokia, to run
for president in the 2000 presidential election. According to
Mr Niinistö, Mr Ollila pondered over the matter when Niinistö
made him the offer in the spring of 1999. As we all know Mr
Ollila didn´t go for it!


About The Author: Nicolas Fogelholm is from NokiaLand (Finland)
and writes nokia news http://www.about-nokia.com/ and is
webmaster for the online community at
http://www.nokiainfo.net/.