Nokia’s past and what could have been Nokia’s future come together in the evening sun on the Helsinki waterfront, outside a café housed in the Finnish group’s old cable factory. Harri Kiljander, a former Nokia manager, is showing off a prototype of the chunky, half-moon-shaped 7700, one of the company’s first forays into the touchscreen devices that now dominate the mobile phone market.
赫尔辛基滨海区，一家咖啡馆外，夕阳照耀下，诺基亚(Nokia)的过去与原本可能拥有的未来在这里交织。这家咖啡馆就坐落在诺基亚的旧电缆厂。在诺基亚做过管理人员的哈里•基尔扬德(Harri Kiljander)正在展示一部外观粗短、呈半月形的7700原型机。这款手机是诺基亚首次试水触摸屏设备的成果之一。如今，触摸屏设备成了手机市场上的王者。
The 7700, which dates from 2003, was never released. A follow-up model was discontinued. When Apple revolutionised the smartphone market with its iPhone in 2007, Nokia, the world’s largest handset manufacturer until last year, was left trailing. On Tuesday, the company passed to Microsoft the supremely difficult mission of catching up with rivals, agreeing the takeover of its mobile phones business in a $5.4bn deal.
诺基亚7700于2003年研发出来，但从未上市。一款后续型号停止研发。2007年，苹果(Apple)的iPhone引发了智能手机革命，自此以后，诺基亚就逐渐被抛在了后面。而直到去年，诺基亚依然是全球最大的手机制造商。今年9月3日，诺基亚把追赶对手的艰巨重任交给了微软(Microsoft)，同意微软以54亿美元收购其手机业务。
The announcement helped lift the market value of the whole of Nokia to €15bn, which is only a fraction of the €100bn it was worth five years ago. Nokia will keep its network equipment and mapping businesses, as well as a portfolio of patents and the ownership of the Nokia brand, but it will hand to the US software company what was once Finland’s greatest source of corporate pride.
宣布这项交易后，诺基亚总体市值上涨到150亿欧元，但与5年前1000亿欧元的市值相比，微不足道。诺基亚将保留其网络设备和地图业务，以及大量专利和诺基亚品牌的所有权，但它交给美国软件企业微软的，一度是芬兰在企业领域的第一大自豪感源头。
Former Nokia employees and executives, politicians, economists and many ordinary Finns agree that while Tuesday’s announcement came as a shock, it was not a surprise. It may even prove to be positive, though in a country that is still suffering economically, as traditional businesses such as forestry, shipbuilding and papermaking decline, it is hard for ordinary Finns to be very upbeat.
诺基亚昔日雇员和高管、政界人士、经济学家以及很多普通芬兰人都认为，微软收购诺基亚手机业务的消息虽然令人震惊，但并不出人意料。这项交易最终或许是好事，尽管在芬兰经济依然低迷，林业、造船业、造纸业等传统行业衰退之际，普通芬兰人很难感到欢欣鼓舞。
Pekka Ala-Pietila, president of Nokia until 2005 and author of a government-commissioned blueprint for alleviating the impact of restructuring in the technology sector, sums up the mood: “There’s a feeling of sadness for something that had a lot of national pride attached to it but Finns are very practical and they look forward. You need to . . . go through that period of sadness and not deny it, and then get on.”
原诺基亚总裁、2005年卸任的佩卡•阿拉-皮蒂拉(Pekka Ala-Pietila)总结人们此刻的感想：“在诺基亚身上寄托着很多民族自豪感，失去它带给人一种伤感，但芬兰人很务实，他们放眼未来。你必须克服这段伤感期，而不能否认这种感情，然后，继续向前奋进。”受政府委托，阿拉-皮蒂拉撰写了一项计划，阐述如何缓解科技行业重组带来的冲击。
Jan Vapaavuori, Finland’s minister of economic affairs, echoes the sentiment: “This is the most pragmatic country in the world – so what happened happened and we’ll now go forward.”
芬兰经济事务部部长让•瓦帕沃里(Jan Vapaavuori)深有同感，他表示：“芬兰是全球最务实的国家，所以已经发生的事情就让它过去，现在我们得向前看。”
It is probably harder for Finns to show stoicism about this blow than nationals of other countries with a more diverse corporate economy. At its peak in 2000, Nokia was responsible for 1 per cent of total employment in Finland, 4 per cent of gross domestic product and last year still accounted for 31 per cent of corporate research and development.
与企业领域更加多元化的其他国家的国民相比，芬兰人可能更难对这一打击淡然处之。在巅峰时期2000年，诺基亚提供了芬兰1%的就业机会，贡献了4%的国内生产总值(GDP)，去年仍占了企业研发的31%。
It was a stunning turnround story: an ageing conglomerate producing timber, tyres and rubber boots that in the early 1990s dragged itself – and recession-hit Finland – back to health by refocusing on mobile phones, spotting that what started as a business tool would become an indispensable consumer product.
诺基亚书写了一个令人惊叹的转型故事：一家生产木材、轮胎和橡胶靴的老企业，在发现手机这种最初作为商业应用工具出现的东西会成为不可或缺的消费品后，把重心转移到了手机业务，从而在20世纪90年代初期把自己、也把深陷衰退的芬兰经济拖出泥潭，重焕生机。
What went wrong? In the search for a scapegoat, Finland’s tabloid newspapers have targeted the current chief executive, Stephen Elop, himself a former Microsoft chief executive. Brought in three years ago to attempt a second difficult turnround, the Canadian issued a memo saying Nokia needed to jump from its “burning platform” and quickly allied the company with his former employer.
后来是哪里出了问题？在寻找替罪羊时，芬兰各家小报把矛头对准了现任首席执行官斯蒂芬•埃洛普(Stephen Elop)。埃洛普本身曾是微软高管，3年前诺基亚把他请过来，希望在他带领下实现第二次艰难转型。这位加拿大人在备忘录中表示，诺基亚必须跳离“燃烧的平台”。很快，在他领导下，诺基亚与他的前东家结盟。
He selected the Windows smartphone operating system for Nokia smartphones, abandoning internally developed options and shunning Google’s fast-growing Android software. The assumption was that with Microsoft’s marketing dollars and Nokia’s handset and design expertise, the two companies would carve out a third smartphone “ecosystem”. They have done this but in terms of market share the strategy has failed. At the same time, the bedrock sales of Nokia’s basic mobile phones in markets such as China and India have crumbled.
他为诺基亚智能手机选择了Windows智能手机操作系统，放弃了内部开发的系统，也拒绝使用谷歌(Google)快速发展的安卓(Android)系统。他们的想法是，凭借微软在营销方面投入的资金和诺基亚的手机与设计，两家公司有望开创第三个智能手机“生态系统”。他们确实做到了，但从市场份额来看，这一战略失败了。同时，诺基亚低端手机（这是其基本销售收入来源）在中国、印度等市场销量大跌。
Amid the recriminations, some Finns accuse Mr Elop of deliberately pursuing a line that made Microsoft the only potential buyer. But despite the value destruction of recent years, the reality is more complex. Blame also attaches to previous executives, including some of those who, under Jorma Ollila, former chairman and chief executive, rescued Nokia from near-oblivion the first time round.
在一片指责声中，有些芬兰人声称，埃洛普刻意奉行的路线导致微软成了唯一的潜在买家。然而，尽管近年来诺基亚市值一泻千里，现实情况却更加复杂。以前的高管也要担责，包括在前董事长兼首席执行官约玛•奥利拉(Jorma Ollila)带领下在第一次转型中把诺基亚从几近被遗忘中拯救出来的一部分人。
As Nokia’s dominance grew in the early 2000s, complacency and bureaucracy crept in. In what now seems a sadly apposite jibe, given the Microsoft takeover, the group’s headquarters in Espoo, just outside central Helsinki, became known as “the PowerPoint Palace”, filled with middle managers obsessed about internal politics and making presentations prepared with the Microsoft tool. Riitta Nieminen-Sundell, a sociologist who worked at the company until 2005, calls the Nokia tale a “Greek tragedy”.
随着21世纪前10年初期诺基亚地位的增强，洋洋自得与官僚作风开始滋生。诺基亚位于赫尔辛基郊区埃斯波(Espoo)的集团总部以“PPT宫殿”著称，充斥着沉迷于内部政治、喜用微软PowerPoint软件进行演示的中层经理。考虑到微软的收购，这一嘲讽在今天看来非常贴切，也令人伤感。在诺基亚干到了2005年、目前是社会学家的里塔•涅米宁-松德尔(Riitta Nieminen-Sundell)称，诺基亚的故事就是一出“希腊悲剧”。
If so, it is a tragedy that Finns hope will have a strong next act. Valtteri Halla, who led development of the homegrown Nokia operating system MeeGo and is now chief technology officer of Leia Media, a start-up, says: “The Nokia palace has collapsed. It was a great fortress and there are huge building blocks lying around, from which people can make things.”
如果真的是这样，芬兰人希望这出悲剧的下一幕会有精彩剧情。领导开发诺基亚自有操作系统MeeGo、现任初创企业Leia Media首席技术官的瓦尔特里•哈拉(Valtteri Halla)表示：“诺基亚宫殿倒塌了。它曾是一座宏伟的堡垒，倒塌以后，大块砖石散落的到处都是，人们拿这些还可以做出一些东西。”
Ms Nieminen-Sundell says: “[Nokia] educated one or two generations of Finns in international business, [planting] the idea that we can do it and we’re not a tiny country next to Sweden, almost in Russia.”
涅米宁-松德尔表示：“诺基亚教育了一两代芬兰人怎么做国际业务，植入了有志者事竟成的观念，使人们认识到，我们不是挨着瑞典的小国，而是像俄罗斯一样强大。”
From his ministry corner office, with a view of the harbour and the historic Aleksanterinkatu district in central Helsinki, Mr Vapaavuori says the decline of Nokia was a bigger psychological blow to Finnish self-esteem than it was a hit to the economy.
瓦帕沃里从他的部长办公室里能够俯视港口以及位于赫尔辛基市中心的Aleksanterinkatu历史街区。他表示，诺基亚衰落对芬兰人自尊心造成的心理打击比对经济的冲击大得多。
Finnish start-ups and small technology companies are trying to prove his point. Among them are gaming companies Supercell (maker of Clash of Clans) and Rovio (Angry Birds). Another is Jolla, staffed mostly with ex-Nokians, which is developing open-source software and innovative phones in an echoing office block shared with Supercell. (“Jolla” means “little sailing ship” in Finnish, with the implication that it was a lifeboat leaving the sinking ship.)
芬兰初创企业和小型科技企业正在试图印证他的观点，其中包括游戏公司Supercell（《部落战争》(Clash of Clans)制作方）和Rovio（《愤怒的小鸟》(Angry Birds)出自该公司）。另一家是Jolla，员工多数是前诺基亚人，正在开发开源软件和创新型手机，与Supercell同在一座写字楼。（Jolla在芬兰语中的意思是“小帆船”，暗指这是一艘离开沉船的救生船。）
Jolla co-founder Antti Saarnio says the message to the country is that “it’s time to wake up” and provide even more support for smaller and medium-sized technology companies. This sentiment echoed a tweet by Ilkka Paananen, the Supercell chief executive, who said “Finland needed this” after the deal was announced.
Jolla联合创始人安蒂•萨尔尼奥(Antti Saarnio)表示，收购消息传递给芬兰的信号是，“是时候觉醒了”，应该给中小型科技企业提供更多支持。Supercell首席执行官伊卡•帕纳宁(Ilkka Paananen)在Twitter上发帖呼应这一观点，在交易信息宣布后，他说“芬兰需要这个”。
While the transition to this post-Nokia era began two or more years ago, an obvious problem is that these smaller companies cannot hope, even if they grow, to replace all of the 14,000 jobs that Nokia has shed in Finland in the past three years, as well as other work that was dependent on the company.
尽管向“后诺基亚时代”的过渡在两三年前就开始了，一个明显问题是，即便这些小型企业在发展，也不能指望它们替代过去3年来诺基亚在芬兰裁减的14000个职位，以及其他过去倚赖诺基亚的工作岗位。
Ebba Dahli, a former Nokia employee and now a partner with Kaato, which connects inward investors with opportunities and employees in Finland, says: “One of the big challenges is it’s not only Nokia [restructuring] – the same is going on in shipbuilding and the paper industry.”
前诺基亚员工埃巴•达利(Ebba Dahli)表示：“最大的一项挑战是，进行结构重组的不仅仅有诺基亚，造船业和造纸业也一样。”如今达利是Kaato的合伙人，该公司为外国投资者在芬兰寻找商机和员工。
Mr Ala-Pietila’s report into the future of the technology sector is partly aimed at making the most of the Nokia building blocks, by helping Finland apply the technology skills it has learnt across many different sectors, beyond telecommunications.
阿拉-皮蒂拉关于科技行业前景的报告一定程度上是想充分利用诺基亚所具有的东西，把其在许多不同领域掌握的科技技能应用到电信业以外的行业。
Start-ups, despite their enthusiasm and ambition, will be less important for employment than sustained investment by Microsoft and other large international employers with Finnish operations.
尽管初创企业有热情，有野心，但在增加就业方面，其重要性比不上微软以及其他在芬兰运营的大型跨国企业持续做出的投资。
Finns may exude a surface calm about the Nokia deal but shortly after the Microsoft announcement there was palpable relief that Broadcom of the US had stepped in to rescue the Finnish operations of Renesas, the Japanese chipmaker, including preserving the jobs of hundreds of people in the northern town of Oulu, where Nokia remains a large employer.
芬兰人对微软收购诺基亚手机业务的交易表面上可能波澜不惊，但在微软宣布消息后不久，美国博通(Broadcom)出手救助日本芯片制造商瑞萨电子(Renesas)的芬兰公司，决定保留北部城市奥卢（Oulu，诺基亚在这里依然是一大雇主）数百人的工作，很明显人们松了一口气。
Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, has done his best to reassure Finnish politicians and Nokia staff this week that Finland will remain an important part of the strategy of the company. In Salo, a Nokia smartphone facility northwest of Helsinki, Mr Ballmer was asked by one of 1,200 staff: “Does this mean we all get Xboxes?” He said they would.
微软首席执行官史蒂夫•鲍尔默(Steve Ballmer)竭尽全力地向芬兰政界和诺基亚员工保证，芬兰仍将是微软战略中的重要环节。在赫尔辛基西北部一家诺基亚智能手机设备厂所在地萨洛(Salo)，1200名员工中的一位问鲍尔默：“这是不是意味着我们都会拿到Xbox？”鲍尔默回答会的。
Mr Kiljander, now a director at F-Secure, a computer security group, says however painful for those who contributed to Nokia’s success, the sale to Microsoft makes sense. “Nokia gets rid of something that could have drowned the whole company and Microsoft gets something that allows it to continue driving its mobile strategy,” he says.
目前在计算机安全企业F-Secure担任董事的基尔扬德表示，不管这给曾为诺基亚的成功做出贡献的人带来多大痛苦，诺基亚把手机业务出售给微软是合理的。他表示：“诺基亚摆脱了那些可能会溺死整个公司的东西，而微软则得到了可以让它继续推进其移动战略的东西。”
In the longer term it will take more than a handout of gaming consoles to some staff and Microsoft’s £250m investment in a new Finnish data centre to fill the hole left in Finland as Nokia has shrunk over the past few years.
从长期来看，要填补诺基亚近些年萎缩而在芬兰留下的窟窿，微软所需要做的不仅仅是给某些员工发放游戏机，或者投资2.5亿英镑在芬兰新建一座数据中心。
In a strange way, Finnish people suggested that the hole was probably bigger for those Finns who did not have a direct stake in Nokia, but had become used to it being the handheld calling card by which foreigners from Barcelona to Beijing recognised their country. Now that the speculation about Nokia’s ownership is over, it may be easier for Finns both inside and outside the company to stop raking over the errors of the past and to start building the future.
奇怪的是，芬兰人认为，这个窟窿可能对某些芬兰人而言更大——这些人与诺基亚并没有直接利益关系，但他们已经习惯人们把诺基亚当作一张名片，从巴塞罗那到北京，各地外国人用这张名片来认识他们的国家。既然诺基亚的归属已经尘埃落定，诺基亚内外的芬兰人可能更容易停止盘点过去的错误，开始为建设未来努力。
Samuli Hanninen, an engineer and Nokia vice-president responsible for smartphone imaging technology, says that when he was briefed on the forthcoming announcement one Saturday he “opened a beer and went to do some gardening”. This week, presenting the news to his team, he called for questions. One engineer put up his hand. “Can we go back to work now?”
工程师、负责智能手机成像技术的诺基亚副总裁萨穆利•汉尼宁(Samuli Hanninen)表示，当他在一个周六事先得知这一交易时，他“开了瓶啤酒，干了点园艺活儿”。他向团队宣布这条消息时，问大家有没有问题。一名工程师举起手，说道：“我们现在能回去工作了吗？”
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