神壇崩塌,芬蘭人的諾基亞情結(2)

Amid the recriminations, some Finns accuse Mr Elop of deliberately pursuing a line that made Microsoft the only potential buyer. But despite the value destruction of recent years, the reality is more complex. Blame also attaches to previous executives, including some of those who, under Jorma Ollila, former chairman and chief executive, rescued Nokia from near-oblivion the first time round.

在一片指責聲中，有些芬蘭人聲稱，埃洛普刻意奉行的路線導致微軟成了唯一的潛在買家。然而，儘管近年來諾基亞市值一瀉千里，現實情況卻更加複雜。以前的高管也要擔責，包括在前董事長兼首席執行官約瑪•奧利拉(Jorma Ollila)帶領下在第一次轉型中把諾基亞從幾近被遺忘中拯救出來的一部分人。

As Nokia's dominance grew in the early 2000s, complacency and bureaucracy crept in. In what now seems a sadly apposite jibe, given the Microsoft takeover, the group's headquarters in Espoo, just outside central Helsinki, became known as “the PowerPoint Palace”, filled with middle managers obsessed about internal politics and making presentations prepared with the Microsoft tool. Riitta Nieminen-Sundell, a sociologist who worked at the company until 2005, calls the Nokia tale a “Greek tragedy”.

隨着21世紀前10年初期諾基亞地位的增強，洋洋自得與官僚作風開始滋生。諾基亞位於赫爾辛基郊區埃斯波(Espoo)的集團總部以“PPT宮殿”著稱，充斥着沉迷於內部政治、喜用微軟PowerPoint軟件進行演示的中層經理。考慮到微軟的收購，這一嘲諷在今天看來非常貼切，也令人傷感。在諾基亞幹到了2005年、目前是社會學家的裏塔•涅米寧-鬆德爾(Riitta Nieminen-Sundell)稱，諾基亞的故事就是一出“希臘悲劇”。

If so, it is a tragedy that Finns hope will have a strong next act. Valtteri Halla, who led development of the homegrown Nokia operating system MeeGo and is now chief technology officer of Leia Media, a start-up, says: “The Nokia palace has collapsed. It was a great fortress and there are huge building blocks lying around, from which people can make things.”

如果真的是這樣，芬蘭人希望這出悲劇的下一幕會有精彩劇情。領導開發諾基亞自有操作系統MeeGo、現任初創企業Leia Media首席技術官的瓦爾特里•哈拉(Valtteri Halla)表示：“諾基亞宮殿倒塌了。它曾是一座宏偉的堡壘，倒塌以後，大塊磚石散落的到處都是，人們拿這些還可以做出一些東西。”

Ms Nieminen-Sundell says: “[Nokia] educated one or two generations of Finns in international business, [planting] the idea that we can do it and we're not a tiny country next to Sweden, almost in Russia.”

涅米寧-鬆德爾表示：“諾基亞教育了一兩代芬蘭人怎麼做國際業務，植入了有志者事竟成的觀念，使人們認識到，我們不是挨着瑞典的小國，而是像俄羅斯一樣強大。”

From his ministry corner office, with a view of the harbour and the historic Aleksanterinkatu district in central Helsinki, Mr Vapaavuori says the decline of Nokia was a bigger psychological blow to Finnish self-esteem than it was a hit to the economy.

瓦帕沃裏從他的部長辦公室裏能夠俯視港口以及位於赫爾辛基市中心的Aleksanterinkatu歷史街區。他表示，諾基亞衰落對芬蘭人自尊心造成的心理打擊比對經濟的衝擊大得多。

Finnish start-ups and small technology companies are trying to prove his point. Among them are gaming companies Supercell (maker of Clash of Clans) and Rovio (Angry Birds). Another is Jolla, staffed mostly with ex-Nokians, which is developing open-source software and innovative phones in an echoing office block shared with Supercell. (“Jolla” means “little sailing ship” in Finnish, with the implication that it was a lifeboat leaving the sinking ship.)

芬蘭初創企業和小型科技企業正在試圖印證他的觀點，其中包括遊戲公司Supercell（《部落戰爭》(Clash of Clans)製作方）和Rovio（《憤怒的小鳥》(Angry Birds)出自該公司）。另一家是Jolla，員工多數是前諾基亞人，正在開發開源軟件和創新型手機，與Supercell同在一座寫字樓。（Jolla在芬蘭語中的意思是“小帆船”，暗指這是一艘離開沉船的救生船。）

Jolla co-founder Antti Saarnio says the message to the country is that “it's time to wake up” and provide even more support for smaller and medium-sized technology companies. This sentiment echoed a tweet by Ilkka Paananen, the Supercell chief executive, who said “Finland needed this” after the deal was announced.

Jolla聯合創始人安蒂•薩爾尼奧(Antti Saarnio)表示，收購消息傳遞給芬蘭的信號是，“是時候覺醒了”，應該給中小型科技企業提供更多支持。Supercell首席執行官伊卡•帕納寧(Ilkka Paananen)在Twitter上發帖呼應這一觀點，在交易信息宣佈後，他說“芬蘭需要這個”。

While the transition to this post-Nokia era began two or more years ago, an obvious problem is that these smaller companies cannot hope, even if they grow, to replace all of the 14,000 jobs that Nokia has shed in Finland in the past three years, as well as other work that was dependent on the company.

儘管向“後諾基亞時代”的過渡在兩三年前就開始了，一個明顯問題是，即便這些小型企業在發展，也不能指望它們替代過去3年來諾基亞在芬蘭裁減的14000個職位，以及其他過去倚賴諾基亞的工作崗位。

Ebba Dahli, a former Nokia employee and now a partner with Kaato, which connects inward investors with opportunities and employees in Finland, says: “One of the big challenges is it's not only Nokia [restructuring] – the same is going on in shipbuilding and the paper industry.”

前諾基亞員工埃巴•達利(Ebba Dahli)表示：“最大的一項挑戰是，進行結構重組的不僅僅有諾基亞，造船業和造紙業也一樣。”如今達利是Kaato的合夥人，該公司爲外國投資者在芬蘭尋找商機和員工。

Mr Ala-Pietila's report into the future of the technology sector is partly aimed at making the most of the Nokia building blocks, by helping Finland apply the technology skills it has learnt across many different sectors, beyond telecommunications.

阿拉-皮蒂拉關於科技行業前景的報告一定程度上是想充分利用諾基亞所具有的東西，把其在許多不同領域掌握的科技技能應用到電信業以外的行業。

Start-ups, despite their enthusiasm and ambition, will be less important for employment than sustained investment by Microsoft and other large international employers with Finnish operations.

儘管初創企業有熱情，有野心，但在增加就業方面，其重要性比不上微軟以及其他在芬蘭運營的大型跨國企業持續做出的投資。

Finns may exude a surface calm about the Nokia deal but shortly after the Microsoft announcement there was palpable relief that Broadcom of the US had stepped in to rescue the Finnish operations of Renesas, the Japanese chipmaker, including preserving the jobs of hundreds of people in the northern town of Oulu, where Nokia remains a large employer.

芬蘭人對微軟收購諾基亞手機業務的交易表面上可能波瀾不驚，但在微軟宣佈消息後不久，美國博通(Broadcom)出手救助日本芯片製造商瑞薩電子(Renesas)的芬蘭公司，決定保留北部城市奧盧（Oulu，諾基亞在這裏依然是一大僱主）數百人的工作，很明顯人們鬆了一口氣。

Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, has done his best to reassure Finnish politicians and Nokia staff this week that Finland will remain an important part of the strategy of the company. In Salo, a Nokia smartphone facility northwest of Helsinki, Mr Ballmer was asked by one of 1,200 staff: “Does this mean we all get Xboxes?” He said they would.

微軟首席執行官史蒂夫•鮑爾默(Steve Ballmer)竭盡全力地向芬蘭政界和諾基亞員工保證，芬蘭仍將是微軟戰略中的重要環節。在赫爾辛基西北部一家諾基亞智能手機設備廠所在地薩洛(Salo)，1200名員工中的一位問鮑爾默：“這是不是意味着我們都會拿到Xbox？”鮑爾默回答會的。

Mr Kiljander, now a director at F-Secure, a computer security group, says however painful for those who contributed to Nokia's success, the sale to Microsoft makes sense. “Nokia gets rid of something that could have drowned the whole company and Microsoft gets something that allows it to continue driving its mobile strategy,” he says.

目前在計算機安全企業F-Secure擔任董事的基爾揚德表示，不管這給曾爲諾基亞的成功做出貢獻的人帶來多大痛苦，諾基亞把手機業務出售給微軟是合理的。他表示：“諾基亞擺脫了那些可能會溺死整個公司的東西，而微軟則得到了可以讓它繼續推進其移動戰略的東西。”

In the longer term it will take more than a handout of gaming consoles to some staff and Microsoft's ￡250m investment in a new Finnish data centre to fill the hole left in Finland as Nokia has shrunk over the past few years.

從長期來看，要填補諾基亞近些年萎縮而在芬蘭留下的窟窿，微軟所需要做的不僅僅是給某些員工發放遊戲機，或者投資2.5億英鎊在芬蘭新建一座數據中心。

In a strange way, Finnish people suggested that the hole was probably bigger for those Finns who did not have a direct stake in Nokia, but had become used to it being the handheld calling card by which foreigners from Barcelona to Beijing recognised their country. Now that the speculation about Nokia's ownership is over, it may be easier for Finns both inside and outside the company to stop raking over the errors of the past and to start building the future.

奇怪的是，芬蘭人認爲，這個窟窿可能對某些芬蘭人而言更大——這些人與諾基亞並沒有直接利益關係，但他們已經習慣人們把諾基亞當作一張名片，從巴塞羅那到北京，各地外國人用這張名片來認識他們的國家。既然諾基亞的歸屬已經塵埃落定，諾基亞內外的芬蘭人可能更容易停止盤點過去的錯誤，開始爲建設未來努力。

Samuli Hanninen, an engineer and Nokia vice-president responsible for smartphone imaging technology, says that when he was briefed on the forthcoming announcement one Saturday he “opened a beer and went to do some gardening”. This week, presenting the news to his team, he called for questions. One engineer put up his hand. “Can we go back to work now?”

工程師、負責智能手機成像技術的諾基亞副總裁薩穆利•漢尼寧(Samuli Hanninen)表示，當他在一個週六事先得知這一交易時，他“開了瓶啤酒，幹了點園藝活兒”。他向團隊宣佈這條消息時，問大家有沒有問題。一名工程師舉起手，說道：“我們現在能回去工作了嗎？”