關於芬蘭科技業的三個神奇故事

Finland has long been in the economic doldrums. Weighed down by the steep decline in Nokia’s once dominant mobile phone business, the country has been mired in recession for four years.

芬蘭處於經濟低谷已經很久了。受到諾基亞(Nokia)一度佔統治地位的手機業務暴跌的影響，該國4年來一直深陷衰退泥潭。

But three pieces of corporate news in recent days hint at some cause for optimism for Finland — and point to some of its challenges. All three come in consumer technology, an area in which Finland has overcome its long-held stereotype as shy and retiring (a classic Finnish joke goes: how do you tell a Finnish extrovert from an introvert? The extrovert looks at your shoes).

但近來的三條企業新聞暗示了一些看好芬蘭的理由，同時也指向該國面臨的一些挑戰。這三條新聞都來自消費科技領域，芬蘭在這個領域克服了其長期以來靦腆和不愛與人交際的印象（一個經典的芬蘭笑話是這樣的：如何分辨一個外向的芬蘭人和一個內向的芬蘭人？外向的那個人會盯着你的鞋）。

First up was the release of Angry Birds, a film based on an app that once conquered the world but recently seemed to fall out of favour. To the surprise of many people, not least this columnist after attending the tepid, almost laughter-free premiere in Helsinki, the film shot to the top of the box office charts in the US and China.

首先是《憤怒的小鳥》(Angry Birds)電影上映。這部電影是基於一款曾經征服世界、但最近似乎不再受到青睞的app製作的。讓很多人（尤其是我這個參加了這部電影在赫爾辛基舉行的不溫不火，幾乎沒有笑聲的首映式的專欄作家）感到驚訝的是，這部電影一躍登上美國和中國票房榜的榜首。

The film is nothing less than an all-in bet by Rovio Entertainment, the developer of Angry Birds. The company once had an ambition to become a new-age Walt Disney, building Angry Birds playgrounds and theme parks, selling Angry Birds fishing rods and sodas as well as making games and cartoons.

這部電影幾乎可以說是“憤怒的小鳥”開發商Rovio Entertainment的孤注一擲之舉。這家公司曾經懷有成爲新時代的華特迪士尼公司(Walt Disney)的抱負，建造憤怒的小鳥遊樂場和主題公園，售賣憤怒的小鳥釣魚竿、碳酸飲料，同時製作遊戲和漫畫。

That vision, however, clouded over as the game’s popularity dipped, leading to three consecutive years of shrinking revenues and a loss last year. It has shed nearly half of its workers in the past two years. It took the unusual step of using its own cash on the film, spending $73m on the production and more on the marketing. As a result, despite the box office success, Rovio is not yet guaranteed to make much profit from the production. But it may hope the spillover effects will invigorate its faltering games business.

然而，隨着該遊戲的人氣下滑，導致該公司連續3年收入下降，去年出現虧損，這一願景被蒙上陰雲。過去兩年期間，該公司裁掉了近一半員工。該公司採取了用自己的資金投資這部電影的不尋常之舉，在電影製作上投入了7300萬美元，在營銷上砸下更多資金。其結果是，雖然該片在票房上取得成功，但Rovio還無法保證從製作這部電影獲得高額利潤。不過，該公司可能希望影片的溢出效應將提振其搖搖欲墜的遊戲業務。

The second piece of news was Nokia’s return to mobile phones after selling its original business to Microsoft in 2014. Under a complicated deal, Nokia-branded phones and tablets will be made by Taiwan’s Foxconn and marketed by a new Finnish company. The local relief was palpable. “Nokia’s comeback gains pace. Lifting spirits in Finland,” tweeted Olli Rehn, Finland’s economy minister. It is hard to exaggerate the psychological boost Nokia’s success in the consumer world had in the 1990s and 2000s on Finland, which hitherto had been solely a business-to-business specialist.

第二條新聞是，自2014年將其原有業務賣給微軟(Microsoft)後，諾基亞重拾手機業務。根據一項複雜的協議，諾基亞品牌的手機和平板電腦將由臺灣的富士康(Foxconn)製造，一家新的芬蘭公司將負責這些產品的營銷。芬蘭當地人的如釋重負感很明顯。“諾基亞復出的步伐加快了。提振了芬蘭的精神，”芬蘭經濟部長奧利•雷恩(Olli Rehn)在Twitter上發帖稱。上世紀90年代和2000年代，諾基亞在消費者領域的成功給芬蘭帶來的心理提振怎麼說都不爲過，在那之前諾基亞僅僅是一個企業對企業的專家。

The return to phones is pretty low-risk and low-return. Nokia has avoided the dangers of manufacturing its own devices and instead plumped for royalty payments for the use of its brand and patents. Still, the deal is testament to the resurrection of Nokia, whose future was far from certain before the 5.4bn Microsoft sale.

重拾手機業務的風險和回報都相當低。諾基亞避開了自己製造設備的危險，而是選擇收取使用其品牌和專利的許可費。話雖如此，這筆交易是諾基亞復活的證明，當初該公司在作價54億歐元把手機部門出售給微軟之前也面臨着不確定的未來。

The final bit of news features Supercell, which can arguably claim to be Nokia’s successor as Finland’s leading consumer company. Japan’s SoftBank, which owns a majority stake in the developer of the hit mobile games Clash of Clans, Hay Day, Boom Beach and Clash Royale, is reportedly putting a majority stake up for sale at a price that would value it at more than $5bn.

最後一條新聞涉及Supercell，該公司堪稱繼諾基亞之後芬蘭首屈一指的消費者企業。熱門手機遊戲部落衝突(Clash of Clans)、卡通農場(Hay Day)、海島奇兵(Boom Beach)和部落衝突：皇室戰爭(Clash Royale)均由該公司開發。持有該公司多數股權的日本軟銀(SoftBank)據報道正要出售其所持股權，售價意味着該公司的估值超過50億美元。

Any deal would be bittersweet for the company, which hailed the 2013 investment, saying its new investor had a focus that “isn’t on the next 10 years but the next 100 years”. But the sale talk underlines how the Finnish company has become one of the successes of the hyper-competitive mobile gaming sector. With just three games — Clash Royale was released this spring — Supercell last year had revenues of 2.1bn and operating profits of 848m.

任何交易對這家公司來說都是喜憂參半。該公司曾盛讚軟銀在2013年的投資，稱這位新投資者的關注點“不在於下一個10年，而是下一個100年”。但軟銀出售Supercell股權的談判突顯出這家芬蘭公司已成爲競爭極爲激烈的手機遊戲業的成功者之一。僅僅依靠3款遊戲（部落衝突：皇室戰爭是今年春天才發佈的），Supercell去年實現了21億歐元的收入和8.48億歐元的營業利潤。

But Supercell made all that money with fewer than 200 employees. By contrast, Nokia had as many as 130,000 in 2010-11, which was down to 56,000 at the end of last year. Rovio, which at its peak employed 800 people, has fewer than 500. Indeed, Microsoft’s announcement of 1,350 job cuts in Finland on Wednesday underscores how the pain from Nokia’s legacy still outweighs any recent employment gains.

但是，Supercell只用不到200個員工實現了這樣的業績。相比之下，諾基亞在2010-11年度有多達13萬員工，在去年底縮減到了5.6萬名員工。Rovio在頂峯的時候僱傭了800名員工，目前不到500名。的確，微軟最近宣佈在芬蘭裁減1350個工作崗位，突顯出諾基亞的遺留影響依然超過近期的就業增加。

This puts into perspective the quest to develop European technology groups to rival the big US operators. Supercell and its backers chose to sell out to an Asian company rather than take the risk of development on themselves, and Rovio’s plans for an initial public offering are still very much on the back burner.

這讓人們客觀看待發展歐洲科技公司、使其能夠與大型美國對手匹敵的追求。Supercell和其贊助者選擇將股份出售給一家亞洲公司，而不是自行承擔發展風險，而Rovio的首次公開發行(IPO)計劃依然遙遙無期。

Finland’s tech scene may be impressive in Europe but it shows just how far the continent still has to go.

在歐洲，芬蘭科技業可能讓人印象深刻，但這也表明歐洲大陸還有多長的路要走。