Nokia

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For the Finnish town, see Nokia, Finland.

Template:Infobox Company €34.191 Billion EUR (2005) [1]|

 homepage       = www.nokia.com

}} Nokia Corporation (Template:Nyse) is one of the world's largest telecommunications equipment manufacturers. With headquarters in Keilaniemi of Espoo, Finland, Nokia 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 (UMTS).

1 History
2 Corporate Culture
3 Trivia
4 See also
5 External links

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History

Nokia was established in 1865 as a wood-pulp mill by Finland-Swede Knut 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. At one time in history Nokia was a major manufacturer of boots for the military. 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 marten found in the region.

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 [2], 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 [3].

Template:IPA noticeThe proper pronunciation of "Nokia" according to Finnish phonology is Template:IPA, with stress on the first syllable, and all vowels short. English speakers often mispronounce the name as something like /nou.ki.ə/ (mistaking the Finnish short 'o' [o] for the English "long O" [əυ]) or /nak'kii.ə/ (misplacing stress and mistaking the short 'i' [i] for a "tense I" [ii]).

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Corporate Culture

Image:Nokian pääkonttori Keilaniemessä.jpg Nokia's official corporate culture manifesto, The Nokia Way, emphasises speed and flexibility of decision making in a flat, networked organization. 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 Nokia employees regardless of location

Nokia Values are listed as: Customer Satisfaction, Respect, Achievement, and Renewal.

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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, though it could be argued that Crazy Frog is more well-known) is actually based on a 19th-century guitar work named "Gran Vals" by Spanish musician Francisco Tárrega. The Nokia Tune was originally named "Gran Vals" on Nokia phones but was changed to "Nokia Tune" around 1998 when it became so well known that people referred to it as the Nokia Tune.

Nokia is sometimes called aikon (Nokia backwards) by non-Nokia mobile phone users and by mobile software developers, because "aikon" is used in various SDK software packages, including Nokia's own Symbian Series 60 SDK.

Nokia sponsored several pan-European Alternate Reality Games from 1999 to 2005, under the name Nokia Game. These were used to promote their latest phones, as well as introducing the ARG format to Europe.

Nokia was listed as the 20th most admirable company worldwide in Fortune's list of 2006 (1st in network communications, 4th non-US company). See [4]

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