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Nokia & Siemens To Merge Network Business 47

Posted by Hemos from the joining-together-to-become-more-powerful dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Nokia and Siemens are joining forces in fixed and mobile network businesses to create a new global player, Nokia Siemens Networks. Based in Finland, the new company will have a revenue of 15.8 billion euros, and a workforce of 60.000 (before the projected "synergy benefits", that will cut costs 1,5 billions euros, and make 10-15 per cent of employees redundant, that is). More info in their press release." There's been other information released in the media as well.
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Nokia & Siemens To Merge Network Business More

Nokia & Siemens To Merge Network Business

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  • make 10-15 per cent of employees redundant
    Don't worry guys, those usually are the bean counters. People that do real work usually aren't fired.

    Kill the bean counter contributions are always save bets on /.

    • And that's a good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hellfire ( 86129 ) <deviladvNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday June 19, 2006 @08:16AM (#15560837) Homepage
      Don't worry guys, those usually are the bean counters. People that do real work usually aren't fired.

      Kill the bean counter contributions are always save bets on /.

      Maybe then slashdotters, including yourself, should grow a heart then?

      Job loss is Job loss. I'm not an accountant but accounting is an important job. Yes I know, accountants are the mortal enemies of IT by being bean counters, but those are usually the managers and execs who control the purse strings, and they are evil because they are know nothing managers, not because they are accountants. The accounting "grunts" who work the spreadsheets, record the money, and take the calls are the not your enemies, and they are also the same people who typically get the axe.

      Actually the other division who typically get the axe are the IT people, so don't think you as a typical slashdotter is safe.
      • Two very large players in an advanced technology field are merging together. There are significant implications for the technology itself. We could also talk about the potential (anti-)trust issues.

        Instead, the first posts are talking about a handful of people losing jobs... Hello?.. That's not, what the companies are there for.

        Luddites [wikipedia.org] were a disgrace...

        Maybe then slashdotters, including yourself, should grow a heart then?

        How about growing a brain, huh? "Oh, those poor Finns, what will they do now

        • Better, and cheaper phones will make everyone better off.

          As has been stated elsewhere here, it is not the mobile phone divisions that are being merged, but rather the mobile and fixed network divisions.

          Also, behind this "technological" advancement social dramas always follow. Ten thousand people losing their jobs means ten thousand families having to look for new income.

          • As has been stated elsewhere here, it is not the mobile phone divisions that are being merged, but rather the mobile and fixed network divisions.

            These are all high-tech fields with high (positive) impact on the world in general, and lots to talk about for the (technical) Slashdot crowd in particular. Instead, we began with "social dramas" — and that's an awful thing...

            Also, behind this "technological" advancement social dramas always follow.

            This is never a good argument against the advancement.

      • >>Kill the bean counter contributions are always save bets on /.
        >Maybe then slashdotters, including yourself, should grow a heart then?
        >Job loss is Job loss.

         Wrong buddy. Usually jobs are cut because an organization has gained too much fat and costs are too high. Cutting is a means to regain the competitive edge. If a company doesn't optimize costs, competition will and the company goes bust. Usually lower level jobs are optimized because there are so many of them and the (mass) processes
    • No, from a Joint Venture they are not (only) bean counters to be laid off, but also pretty valid people.

      I work for Siemens COM, wich is part of the JV, and the result if I or I am not part of 10% is "will my work useful (i.e. not redundant with other company product) after merge?".

      As you may note, if I am a monkey or not is totally irrilevant. In a JV one product of the two parallel force will survive. If it will be the one that I work for, OK.
      Otherwise, well, I am off.

      That's it.

      If RNC (network entity for

  • Less Competition, Fewer Knowledge Workers (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well it goes to show that competition creates jobs. Where there is less competition there is less change and where there is less change, there are less knowledge-workers making the new designs.

    Nokia competes against Siemens and they employ 60000 workers, Nokia stops competing with Siemens and they only need to employ 51000 or less, produce fewer designs, need fewer knowledge workers, have fewer potential hit products, have fewer knowledge workers dreaming up new ideas etc.

    So much for software patents encour

    • Where there is less competition there is less change and where there is less change, there are less knowledge-workers making the new designs.

      And where a market exists that can be served me new products, new companies will emerge.

      On the other hand, I think what we are seeing is the majuring of the new telecommunications market, which in turn drives the consolidation in its industry. When you can't differentiate yourself on technology or service as much as in the past, its only natural for companies to di

  • Has a nice ring to it... (Score:3, Funny)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Monday June 19, 2006 @08:39AM (#15560891)
    NSN...

    Too bad it wasn't 'Lokia & Siemens' tho, then it would be LSN and right in line in front of MSN in the yellow pages :)

    http://www.nsn.com/ [nsn.com] - ouch ...maybe http://www.nsn.mobi/ [nsn.mobi] - nope, that one is up for grabs...can't believe they spent all that money and let the perfect url slip away. Not a very auspicious start boys.

  • Nokia networks != Nokia, Siemens networks != Sieme (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19, 2006 @08:46AM (#15560916)

    There are already too many misleading comments talking about mobile phones and other products made by Nokia and Siemens. Maybe it is time to remind some uninformed readers that:

    • Nokia networks division != Nokia
    • Siemens networks division != Siemens

    This merger affects the part of each company that is dealing with mobile network infrastructure: things like the mobile switching centers, GPRS support nodes, many nodes in the radio access networks and so on... This has very little to do with the terminals (mobile phones). These companies will keep on selling and developing their mobile phones independently (or via BenQ, for Siemens)

    For comparison, when Sony and Ericsson merged their mobile phone divisions, the network part of Ericsson remained independant. Same for all other parts of Sony. Nobody expected to see a Walkman(tm) or a Bravia(tm) screen added to Ericsson's network switches and nobody expected to see the Sony Vaio laptops turning into GSM base stations.

    • Except that my sony vaio has a GSM modem built-in ;)
    • One potential aspect of this joint venture that I haven't been able to find any information about is whether it includes transfer of stakes in Symbian OS? I don't imagine it would considering it is the network divisions, not the phone divisions. However, if it does it might push Nokia over 50% ownership [symbian.com].

      PS: When visiting symbian.com at work, don't leave out the m! Looks like I'm going to be getting visit from the network overlords. Grumble, grumble.
  • 15.8 billion euros, and a workforce of 60.000 (before the projected "synergy benefits", that will cut costs 1,5 billions

    Whoa. I don't think I've ever seen such screwed-up number formatting on /.

    Dear submitters, since the editors will obviously not fix such obvious errors, do take a look at number formatting on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] and number accordingly (hint: Slashdot is published in English from a 'Dot Country'.)

  • The real reason for the merger (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jocks ( 56885 ) on Monday June 19, 2006 @09:07AM (#15560990) Homepage
    This is the inevitable result of the series of failed technologies that hang round the necks of all those involved in mobile telephone business like the large stinking albatross it is.

    The whole industry is a series of calamatous errors, and before you start telling me about the huge amounts of money they make I wan't you to consider the difference between doing something "good" and making money. Drug barons make money - but their industry is hardly what you would call good. Similarly, the mobile phone companies have sytematically fought between themselves, with network operators killing off fledgling technologies like WAP by charging prohibitive access costs; to handset vendors packing so much unused technology into the handsets the network operators struggle to recoup their costs. Hardly good business practice, and let's face it the handsets are short lived unreliable pieces of junk that are pratically unuseable. I'm a geek and I can't even be arsed to use the calendar on my phone for fuxsake.

    3G has been the biggest farce since the Noel Coward left the party. The technology is dreadful, truly awful to use. It is expensive, unreliable, impractical and worthless. Who in their right mind is going to hold a very expensive handset at arms length and shout at the 1" square image for the sake of making a video call? (inside obviously because you cannot see the screen in daylight and not on a train because the signal is too unreliable, nor where there are people around because you would hardly want to be seen making a prat of yourself and only to someone that has a compatible handset). Those poor network operators have had to write off the costs of the 3G license that they paid for e.g. Vodaphone's massive loss recently, and they still cannot find any way to make money off the connection. Sure, they make a few bucks/quid from laptop access but 802.11 is guzzling up paying customers faster than a $20 whore.

    So, where do they go? More new technology? Like the Sony i-mode stuff? I seriously doubt that will ever be more than a passing fad for a few technophiles. No, that is not the answer. I don't know what is, and neither do the manufaturers, so in the meantime they will consolidate their costs, buy up companies like LG, Siemens & SAGEM and sell cheap handsets, that only barely work, until they find a more lucrative solution.

    Cynical, perhaps, but that has been the history of this industry since the 80's. The only trick that really worked was SMS texting - and they did not catch onto that for about a year after it was popular.
    • FYI, i-mode was invented by NTT DoCoMo and is aparently HUGE in Japan (as is all the "3G" stuff like video calls and such).
      But then again, the japanese always get the cool technology first :)

      I do aggree though that i-mode is a piece of crap :)
      • A lot of stuff has been HUGE in Japan, from dressing schoolgirls in sailor suits to the festival of the penis - but lets be clear, they are not necessarily things we would want to emulate over here. As a people (and yes I do know this is a huge stereotype) they are much more accepting of new technologies and for good reason - it has served them well and made them the world leaders in innovation. They have a geographic advantage in that they are on a relatively small series of islands and so they can roll
    • While your comment might be interesting or insightful, it's not quite relevant, you've gotten your technology all mixed up.
      This merge has absolutely nothing to do with their mobile division (it's gone already, to BenQ)
      Most of what's to be merged are the transport network divisions (think SDH and DWDM.)
      Totally different market, which has actually been recovering from the crash of 2001/2002.

  • Fight off the chinese (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spectrokid ( 660550 ) on Monday June 19, 2006 @09:10AM (#15560999) Homepage
    The CNN article sais they are both getting a lot of heat from the far east. We are not talking consumer products you can push with the right marketing. I am sure the Vodaphone purchase director does not care how sexy the switches look. They will need to make good quality products for the right price, and a merger is probably the only way to keep Europe in the running.
    • What? Keep Europe in the running? The combination of European players in this market (Ericson, Nokia & Siemens) collectively holds half the world market. So, European players are making the market and the big American player (Motorola) looks sicker by the day. The only significant Far East player is NEC and their products are tangled up with Siemens and we don't know how the untangling will proceed yet. As for the Chinese - they don't design or contribute to standards. They do the bulk contract manu

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