Nokia's rising star flickers: made over from a supplier of rubber, paper, and cable to a key European high-tech player, Nokia saw its sales slide into a loss last year

Article Abstract:

Nokia Corp was a significant Finnish industrial manufacturing company with interests in rubber, paper and cable when Kari Kairamo was elected president and CEO in 1977, but the company soon began to change. Continuing in a direction established by his predecessor, Bjorn Westerlund, Kairamo concentrated his attentions on Nokia's small electronics department. Kairamo was enormously successful: Nokia is now one of Europe's leading electronics companies. Nokia is Europe's third-largest television maker, and is an important player in the global market for telecommunications equipment. Sales for the FY ended on Dec 31, 1991, were 15.5 billion Finnish markkas (FIM), or $3.7 billion. Even so, management mistakes, too much growth and the recession have caused Nokia to falter, and the company was hit hard in Dec 1988 when Kairamo, who had done so much for the company, committed suicide. After Kairamo's death, Simo Vuorilehto became Nokia's chairman and CEO. There is optimism that the company can regain its stature as a leader in international electronics.

Electronic Components and Accessories, Finland, Telecommunications equipment industry, Telecommunications equipment, Electronics industry, Nokia Corp., Television equipment industry, Communications Equipment, Outlook

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Ericsson bets on a cellular world; Sweden's biggest electronics company succeeds in the fastest-growing market in telecommunications

Article Abstract:

Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, Sweden's largest electronics firm, claims that 40 percent of the world's cellular telephones are linked to an Ericsson cellular network. The $7 billion (1989 revenues) company has made a major success in providing telephone networks internationally. Central to Ericsson's current and future cellular marketing strategy is the firm's modular AXE digital switch, which facilitates the migration of telecommunication networks towards cellular communications. Ericsson has been successful in promoting its frequency-division multiple access Telepoint cellular service, but is now focusing on time-division multiple access cellular technologies in Europe and the US. Much of the industry, though, is promoting code-division multiple access cellular communications. Ericsson's research and development efforts and other communications technologies are discussed.

Sweden, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, Growth (Physiology), Telephone systems, Growth, Telephone System, Marketing Strategy, Cellular Radio, company profile, ERICY

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Compact disc: 1983

Article Abstract:

Introduction of compact disc systems by Sony and Philips in 1983 was the culmination of 13 years of research and development since the underlying concept originated in the minds of Philips physicist Klass Compaan. The original concept involved storing video, but 1972 saw a switch to recording audio. Over subsequent years the firm gambled on many design decisions involving untried technology, including digital storage, use of gallium-arsenide lasers to read the data, and a variety of strategies for simplifying and reducing the cost of a potential compact disk player. The firm contracted with Polygram Record Service GmbH of West Germany to develop an inexpensive disk material. Philips also persuaded Sony to work together to further the technology's development to assure that it would become a standard.

Product development, Sony Corp., Disk drives, SNE, CD-ROM disks, Systems development, Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken N.V., System Development, CD-ROM, PGLOY

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