The news of selling Nokia business to Microsoft is in the air now. Jan Vapaavuori, Finland’s minister of economic affairs speaking about the news to media put an eye on someone when told that one of his or her favorite aunt had expired after a long illness.
“Nokia was about 40% of Finland’s GDP between 2000 and 2007,” he told the Guardian in London. “It was one-third of all Finland’s research and development spending. But that ended in 2007. Since then its economic impact hasn’t been that big.” The sale, he said, “is the end of a chapter. But it opens a new chapter. It’s a healthy reminder of the fact of the hard global competition in the world we live in”.
He gave a brief description about the deal between Nokia and Microsoft. According to him, the deal has a big symbolic value for both the companies. It was known worldwide. Leaving the financial impact behind the impact of the deal is more emotional, he said.
Vapaavuori said he had not tried to block the deal. “Finland is very pragmatic. We are quite a young nation. We don’t have a history as a superpower. Rather than having one struggling, unprofitable phone company, we will have two strong companies.”
Different people have different moods within the country. Some are in confusion and some abandonment. Union members are completely silent against the shift as they have seen a number of jobs wiped out, which according to them has seen hundreds of thousands of Finns working for Microsoft Corporation.