Nokia
- For the Finnish town, see Nokia, Finland.
| File:Nokia logo.png | |
| Company type | Public (OMX: NOK1V NYSE: NOK; Xetra: NOA3) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Predecessor | Suomen Gummitehdas Suomen Kaapelitehdas  |
| Founded | Nokia, Finland (1865) |
| Headquarters | Espoo, Finland |
Key people | Fredrik Idestam, Founder Jorma Ollila, Chairman & CEO Pekka Ala-Pietilä, President |
| Products | BlueRun Ventures home satellite systems mobile gaming devices set-top boxes wireless data devices wireless switching equipment wireless systems wireless voice devices |
| Revenue |  €29.3 billion EUR (2004) |
| −1,100,000,000 Euro (2016) | |
| −927,000,000 Euro (2016) | |
| Total assets | 39,517,000,000 Euro (2018) |
Number of employees | 55,505 (2004) |
| Website | www.nokia.com |
Nokia Corporation NYSE: NOK is one of the world's largest telecommunications equipment manufacturers. With headquarters in Keilaniemi of Espoo, Finland, this Finnish telecommunications company is best known today for its leading range of mobile phones. Nokia also produces mobile phone infrastructure and other telecommunications equipment for applications such as traditional voice telephony, ISDN, broadband access, professional mobile radio, voice over IP, wireless LAN, a line of digital terrestrial television receivers and satellite receivers.
Nokia provides mobile communication equipment for every major market and protocol, including GSM, CDMA, and WCDMA.
History
Nokia was established in 1865 as a wood-pulp mill by Fredrik Idestam on the banks of Nokia rapids. Finnish Rubber Works established its factories in the beginning of 20th century nearby and began using Nokia as its brand. Shortly after World War I Finnish Rubber Works acquired Nokia wood mills as well as Finnish Cable Works, a producer of telephone and telegraph cables. All three companies were merged as Nokia Corporation in 1967. The name Nokia originated from the river which flowed through the town of the same name (Nokia). The town and river are named after a small black marsupial found in the region which was nicknamed Nokia.
In the 1970s Nokia became more involved in the telecommunications industry by developing the Nokia DX 200, a digital switch for telephone exchanges. In the 1980s, Nokia offered a series of personal computers called MikroMikko [1], however, these operations were sold to International Computers, Ltd. (ICL), which later became part of Fujitsu; the personal computer operation was handed over to Fujitsu-Siemens AG. Nokia also began developing mobile phones for the NMT network; unfortunately, the company ran into serious financial problems in the 1990s and streamlined its manufacturing of mobile phones, mobile phone infrastructure, and other telecommunications areas, divesting itself of other items, such as televisions and personal computers.
In 2004, Nokia resorted to similar streamlining practices with layoffs and organizational restructuring, although on a significantly smaller scale. This, however, diminished Nokia's public image in Finland, and produced a number of court cases along with, at least, one television show critical of Nokia.
Recently, Nokia joined other mobile phone manufacturers to embrace Taiwanese Original Device Manufacturers. Nokia signed a contract with BenQ, a Taiwanese Original Device Manufacturer, to develop three high-end mobile phones, which are scheduled to retail by the end of 2005.
Nokia has been engaged in a series of legal actions dealing with Intellectual Property Issues.
Pronunciation
The proper pronunciation of "Nokia" according to Finnish phonology is ['nokia], with stress on the first syllable, and all vowels in the name being short and unreduced — there are no schwas ("a" [ə] or "uh" [ɒ]). This creates problems for some, especially English speakers, who replace the vowels with schwas, as there are no direct equivalents to the Finnish short [o] or [a] sounds in English. Some English mispronunciations include [nəυ'ki:ə] "no-KEY-uh" and [nɒ'ki:ə] "knock-E-uh". English approximation spelling cannot be used accurately, because the closest English vowels are not interchangeable with the Finnish ones. In Spanish or French the spelling would be the same as in Finnish, while taking the correct stress pattern into account. Often, mispronunciation will lead to other words and meaning such as in a Nokia television commercial in which the name is mispronounced /nak:ia/ (double k), which means "(a bit of) wiener" in Finnish.
For a synthesized example, try French at http://www.naturalvoices.att.com/demos/ or a synthesized Finnish [2] (then click on www.mikropuhe.com/demo.asp, which will give you a pop-up)
Corporate Culture
Nokia's official corporate culture manifesto, The Nokia Way, emphasises speed and flexibility of decision making in a flat, networked organisation. Equal opportunities and openness are also stressed, along with management leadership and employee participation.
Nokia is a progressive and forward-thinking mobile technology group spending millions on research and development and priding itself on being "first to market" with new applications.
English is the official language spoken and written among Nokians regardless of location
Nokia Values are listed as: Customer Satisfaction, Respect for the Individual, Achievement, and Continuous Learning.
Trivia
The "Special" tone available to users of Nokia phones when receiving SMS (text messages) is actually Morse code for "SMS". Similarly, the "Ascending" SMS tone is Morse code for "Connecting People," Nokia's slogan.
The ringtone "Nokia Tune" (probably the world's most well-known ringtone) is actually based on a 19th-century guitar work named "Gran Vals" by Spanish musician Francisco Tarrega. The Nokia Tune was originally named "Gran Vals" on Nokia phones but was changed to "Nokia Tune" around 1998 when it became that well known that people referred to it as the Nokia Tune.
Nokia is sometimes called aikon (Nokia backwards) by non-Nokia mobile phone users.