Both Nokia and Skype went under due to usual European leadership stagnation and comfort before getting bought. Thankfully both sales funneled enough funds into EU to bootstrap a startup culture here.
n=1 and all, but I've heard similar stories. European tech companies have very different cultures and ways of making money, shaped by our laws and consumer expectations.
Skype, for example, was used as a pay phone and a simple messaging app before Microsoft bought it. You put in a euro, and you call and message your friends. It mutated into a bloated Microsoft Live app with several different front-ends, including some integrations with Office and various subscription services that sold the same thing in multiple ways. Core features stopped working, too. I'm sure someone liked the Frankenstein monster that it became (I don't kink-shame sadists), but most of the original users, and especially Europeans, did not.
If Microsoft had a purpose for Skype except for taking out a competitor, I'd say the decline would have been the result of managerial incompetence and American managers' lack of understanding of Europe. But of course, once a competitor bought Skype, there was no reason for it to exist anymore, so perhaps that is the reason it died.
Still, I wouldn't blame Europe so quickly. American big tech often fails to do business here within the local culture and laws, too.
They too didn't understand our culture. They completely ignored the parts of our business that were scalable and taking off, and focused instead on nebulous "synergies". They actually seemed more interested in us taking on their branding than what we actually did. They'd push down demands to chase some latest trends but when we needed something back from them they struggled to give us the time of day.
They also immediately tried to give pay cuts and force immediate redundancies and seemed shocked to discover they couldn't legally do that. So instead they had to polite request that people in our company take a pay cut. I only know of one person naive enough to take them up on that offer.
I left a few years post acquisition, it was clear things would not get better we were just left rudderless because we'd previously been run by the founder for ~25 years and now were run by no-one with no direction.
Most acquisitions don’t turn into YouTube or WhatsApp/Instagram-level success for the acquirer. The academic literature on CEOs empire building via acquisition is that most of the time it’s value destructive.
I love a good US vs Europe debate but acquisitions aren’t an area where either corporate culture excels. European acquirers are equally as careless with their gobbled up playthings.
Knew a developer who worked there.
Day 1 of aquisition - there were 4 layers of managers between him and Steve Ballmer.
A year later there were 8. Tjis is how much bureaucracy and managers MS added in only one year
Yup, that's also my experience. Americans are just like the unofficial President - they don't take "no" for an answer when they demand something, no matter what, unless you manage to get court judgements because that actually threatens the bottom line.
> Still, I wouldn't blame Europe so quickly. American big tech often fails to do business here within the local culture and laws, too.
I always remember when Wal-Mart tried to come to Germany... and had to leave with its tail tucked in because they just couldn't cope with stuff being done differently here [1].
[1] https://medium.com/the-global-millennial/why-walmart-failed-...
Do they still do this to this day? This is definitely an -ism of the early 2010's but I figured corporate stopped pretending that "we're family" by the close of the decade.
The smiling argument makes perfect sense. I hear several EU countries simply have a more blunt approach and pretty neutral mannerisms towards strangers. Americans would call the approach "cold", so there's definitely a cultral difference.
That sure is a funny way to refer to a president who was elected by both the popular vote and the Electoral College. I'm no fan of Trump, but it sounds like a form of derangement syndrome to believe that he wasn't democratically elected.
̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶n̶ ̶T̶r̶u̶m̶p̶?̶ ̶H̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶a̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶v̶o̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶a̶s̶h̶a̶m̶e̶d̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶u̶n̶f̶o̶r̶t̶u̶n̶a̶t̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶i̶c̶i̶a̶l̶.̶
Edit: Parent more than likely meant Musk as replies to this comment explained, I should have figured that out but it's too late or early or some other excuse.
Yes, it was used as a backdoor to scrap user data when the computer was not in use. That's why i uninstalled it.
What? None of those were EU government owned, all was private. Do people really have this sort of (completely incorrect) view on how things work in Europe? Not even donald was ever stating such ridiculous things
Stagnation and risk averseness is pretty much the default when it comes to most major European companies. In almost any sector.
And the claim of parent that income from sales would go to EU, which is not true, it went to Nokia owners who aren't in any meaning 'EU'. Its like saying any sale of any US private company to some foreign one goes to trump and his government.
Your post is typical lazy propagation of trivially verifiable made up claims, not sure even by whom or for what purpose, but this forum has higher standards
I guess one could call it leadership stagnation, but I would argue more it being just plain old stupidity
