Finland and the U.S. to Launch Icebreaker Cooperation

President Alexander Stubb of Finland visits the White House today together with Prime Minister Petteri Orpo. There, he will sign a memorandum of understanding with President Donald Trump concerning cooperation on icebreaker technology.

This document lays the foundation for commercial agreements between the U.S. Coast Guard and Finnish companies. It is also the result of prior negotiations between the U.S. administration and Finnish shipbuilders.

The cooperation is based on the fact that Finnish expertise in icebreaker technology is unparalleled anywhere in the world — and that is why the Americans trust it.

Icebreakers are not ordinary ships; they represent a highly specialized technology mastered only within the Finnish “icebreaker ecosystem”, where the coordinated expertise of numerous companies comes together. In other words, the overall know-how is not the private property of any single company.

For this same reason, Finland’s core icebreaker expertise cannot simply be transferred abroad, even though the agreement includes an option for part of the shipbuilding work to be carried out in the United States. However, this would mainly involve the final outfitting of the icebreakers — work that does not significantly differ from any other type of ship construction.

In Finland, some concern has been expressed that these new deals might lead to the loss of icebreaker know-how from the country. For the reasons mentioned above, I do not share this concern. However, I do see great value in the fact that the construction of these vessels will also create jobs for American companies.

Such cooperation, if successful, could lead to a long-term partnership between Finnish and American companies — and thereby, in President Stubb’s words, “benefit both Finland and the United States.” After all, each icebreaker costs around two billion euros, so there’s a significant share for everyone involved.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Finland and the USA: Strong Allies with Shared Interests or a Trade Dispute?
Former President Donald Trump is Also the Upcoming President – But What Does It Mean?
Finland Will Thrive with Any US President, Trump Survived the Assassination Attempt

The program of the new Finland´s Government is ready, and ministers are being selected

The new Finnish Government has a program in place, although the appointment of ministers is still pending. Nonetheless, it was genuinely intriguing to read about the selection criteria employed by the leaders of Government's two largest parties: Petteri Orpo of the National Coalition Party and Riikka Purra of the Finns Party.

Petteri Orpo selects ministers based on general and substantive expertise, as well as considering general political experience, gender equality, and regional distribution. He explicitly mentioned that he does not have any specific favorites (team members) within his own party.

On the other hand, Riikka Purra emphasizes the overall and substantive expertise of her ministers. She explicitly stated that gender equality is not a central criterion for her, although a balanced composition is desired also in the Finns Party's ministerial team.

It remains to be seen how these principles will be reflected in the final ministerial appointments. However, it is already clear that Orpo will become the Prime Minister and Purra will serve as the Minister of Finance. The success of the government largely depends on the success of their collaboration.

The goal of this collaboration is to respond to the message conveyed by the voters in the recent parliamentary elections to the country's leadership. That is: Finland's economy must be revived, with a focus on promoting growth and reducing debt. Additionally, the internal security, which has been disrupted due to the immigration policies of previous governments, needs to be restored. 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
The people long for strict economic policy
Reducing taxes, enhancing export and paying the governmental debt
The Center and the National Coalition Party are willing to donate our tax money to the EU

The reasons behind the fall of Nokia´s cellphone business

The main newspaper in Finland - Helsingin sanomat - wrote about a new study on Nokia company, which was made at the University of Oulu. It reported that Nokia´s cellphone business failed because of moving its production from a long-time collaboration company Elcoteq to East Asia. 

That resulted in considerable problems including a loss of quality, which led to a bankrupt of Elcoteq and loss of most European ICT jobs. Also, the close collaboration of the Nokia and its subcontactors ended as company´s relationship with Elcoteq had been highly open and mutual. 

The rules in East Asia were completely different, and Nokia never learned them well enough.

* * *

I have had many friends who have worked in Nokia company, and according to their views the company had an even bigger problem. That was its practice to provide each R&D project to two different R&D units. 

It worked nicely during the rise of the cellphone company, as competition accelerated innovation. However, later the competition between groups became more and more negative - each group trying to decelerate competitors efforts instead of speeding up their own. And that led to extremely negative atmosphere among the R&D units. 

Furthermore, Nokia did not only try to make cellphones as cheaply as possibly - that is why the subcontracting was moved to East Asia - but also R&D. Thus, its leaders did not understood that the engineers are not freely convertible. And definitely, the engineers behind the rise of the company were not mainstream of their profession but an exceptional source of innovation and passion not cheaply available anywhere. 

Thus, the R&D of Nokia halted - compared to its competitors, especially Apple - and even worse, the leaders of Nokia did not believe in phones with touchscreens even though they had been offered such a phone already in 2003 - well before Apple had its own. 

Thus, the end of Nokia cellphones was a story of misunderstandings, detrimental leadership and arrogance. Today, the company is again in rise - although not in mobile phone business - and hopefully has learned from its past failures. At least, more of its R&D is today in Europe and it is even making decent profits to its owners.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Microbial solution to malnutrition?
Vikings and the technological cutting edge
Voisikohan olla... (my view about Nokia during its ongoing fall - in Finnish but google translatable, year 2010)