EuroWire November 2015

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Transatlantic cable
November 2015 28
A concurrent, nationwide, development suggests that the
economics of solar power generation likewise are becoming
more favourable. According to the US Department of Energy
(DOE), the installed price for grid-connected solar PV systems
has dropped in the USA for the fth consecutive year.
The DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in California,
reported that national median installed prices in 2014 declined
year-over-year by nine per cent for residential systems, by
ten per cent for non-residential systems less than or equal to
500 kilowatts (kW), and by 21 per cent for non-residential
systems higher than 500kW.
Installed prices continued to fall over the rst six months of
2015, with an eight per cent decrease for residential systems,
a 13 per cent decrease for non-residential systems less than or
equal to 500kW, and a six per cent decrease for non-residential
systems higher than 500kW.
As noted by digital reporter Greg Watry of R&D Magazine
(Rockaway, New Jersey), the DOE report attributes these price
declines to dropping “soft costs” rather than to lower prices
for solar modules, which in fact have remained relatively
steady since 2012. Soft costs include such items as “marketing
and customer acquisition, system design, installation labour,
permitting and inspection costs, and installer margins.”
According to the DOE report, reductions in these costs are
due in part to steady increases in system size and module
e ciency, “although [they] likely also re ect a broad and
sustained emphasis within industry and among policymakers on
addressing soft costs.”
Telecom
In its care for workers laid o in the wake
of the takeover of Nokia by Microsoft
of the USA, Finland does well by doing good
When, in August 2013, Nokia agreed to sell its handset
business to Microsoft for $7.2 billion, the Finnish company’s
lost dominance of the global mobile phone market was viewed
at home as a tragedy but not a mystery. In simplest terms, the
pace-setting and adaptive rm whose market capitalisation had
dwindled to a fth of where it stood in 2007 was crushed by
Apple and Android, also USA-based. Nokia now focuses almost
exclusively on its telecom infrastructure business.
In the Finland of 2015, the Nokia story is no longer solely
a cautionary tale, although troubles stemming from the
sale persist. Last year, within three months of nalising its
acquisition of the mobile phone business, Microsoft announced
18,000 layo s, many of them in Finland. And the end is not
yet. Microsoft (Redmond, Washington) said it would reduce
its Finnish work force by up to 2,300 employees, or roughly
two-thirds of its local work force.
Writing in the New York Times, Mark Scott took note of this fast
in ux of unemployed tech workers into the Finnish economy
and acknowledged that it has left policymakers in Helsinki with
a headache. But, he wrote, it is a headache “that many of their
counterparts elsewhere would most likely welcome.” (“After
Nokia Layo s, Tech Workers in Finland Regroup and Refocus,”
9th August)
The apparent paradox is explained by the exponential growth
of smartphones, apps, and the mobile Internet, which has
governments worldwide striving to train and keep more
highly skilled developers and engineers to serve the needs
of their quickly digitising economies. Mr Scott noted that
British politicians are investing heavily in computer training
for teenagers; French policymakers are pushing coding as a
potential solution to the country’s economic problems; and
many Americans are rebooting their careers to tap into the
growing number of tech jobs.
Meanwhile Finland – with a population roughly the same as that
of the USA state of Minnesota – has a surplus of highly trained
tech workers, made redundant in the Nokia-Microsoft transition.
A team e ort gets results
That many of the former employees have made a comparatively
soft landing in fairly dire circumstances is attributable largely to
a timely e ort by the Finnish government. As Nokia began to
lay o employees, politicians introduced government grants,
entrepreneurship programmes, and other training to help
laid-o workers to start their own companies. In a concurrent
development, companies outside Finland opened o ces there,
attracted by the available tech talent.
“Finnish politicians have also forced Nokia – and are putting
pressure on Microsoft – to support former employees’ re-entry
into the labour market,” Mr Scott reported. That help includes
one-o grants for new business ventures and permission for
former employees to use some of the companies’ intellectual
property, such as unwanted patents, almost free of charge.
Olli Rehn, the Finnish minister of economic a airs,
acknowledged in an interview with the Times that both
Nokia and Microsoft “have shown substantial responsibility in
mitigating the impact of the layo s.” Owing to these various
initiatives, said Mr Rehn: “Finland remains a stronghold for the
global tech industry.”
† Taking the endeavour a step further, several of the Finnish
cities most a ected by the big job cuts have pushed to
attract other tech companies, using the available local
tech talent as a major selling point. Mr Scott noted that
ARM Holdings, the British designer of digital products, and
MediaTek, the Taiwanese semiconductor company, have
recently set up research and development facilities in Oulu,
in the far north of Finland. They are hiring teams of former
Nokia engineers.
† According to government o cials and national statistics, as
a result of the mitigation e orts the unemployment rate for
Finland’s tech workers is several percentage points lower
than the current ten per cent unemployment rate for the
nation as a whole.
Elsewhere in telecom . . .
† The Financial Times reported (23rd August) that a BT Group
o cial had called for the United States to require its
telecommunications companies to allow access to their
networks at regulated prices, as per rules in place in the
United Kingdom. BT is the country’s main provider.
Bas Burger, president of the British company’s Americas unit,
told the London newspaper that a lack of regulation has
hampered competition in the USA, where AT&T and Verizon
Communications control some 80 per cent of the telephone
and broadband lines serving businesses and homes. He said
BT Group must charge its customers more to cover the large fees
paid to the USA telecoms for data transmission over those wires.