Samsung plans new R&D centre in Finland Samsung has confirmed that it’s opening an R&D facility in Nokia’s home country of Finland. A brief statement from the Korean electronics giant sent to The Reg offered the following information: On June 13, 2013, we plan to open a new R&D centre in Finland, which will be a branch of the Samsung Electronics R&D Institute UK ( …
If your aim is to fiddle the tax man, it doesn't matter where you have a physical presence, nor even where your money is made, as Google, Apple, et al have shown.
My first thought was that Finland could be where a lot of mobile R&D talent is still located, post-Elopcalypse. Perhaps this is Samsung positioning itself to snap up local talent, ready for when Nokia lays off more staff, or finally sinks beneath the waves. Or perhaps, by establishing themselves in Nokia's back yard, they hope to hasten the unfortunate company's demise, by poaching away their current talent...
Perhaps they want to pick up Jolla. Or some of the thousands of laid-off Nokia engineers who know a lot about Meego/Maemo. In which case, Nokia has absolutely nobody to blame but themselves.
The idea of some posts that Samsung should say "well, there's this huge pool of underemployed talent but we shouldn't exploit it because that wouldn't be the done thing" - is absurd.
Incidentally, Koreans are far from being entirely Asiatic. Among their ancestors are migrants from Northern Europe. Finns and Koreans share genetic links, as well as an almost obsessive insistence on high educational standards and a liking for food that the inhabitants of other countries find a bit strange.
With their foray into Tizen, I wouldn't be surprised to see them go for the Maemo expertise. I hope that they don't raid Jolla though. I prefer the open approach to the carrier friendly lock down that Sammy is likely to produce.
Given the nature of the operating systems being open source, it is possible that it could be mutually beneficial.
"It's also a way to mitigate taxes in Europe, don't be fooled with the altruism, it's all about money and how to avoid giving it to the tax man."
I'm not sure that you understand a lot about how offshoring tax fiddles work.
Applying Occam's razor, it's more likely that it's to hoover up all the underemployed nerds) (not just Nokia fallout but grads from some excellent technical universities), rather than a curiously inept attempt to save tax with an odd choice of European tax umbrella.
Far more likely to launder tax through .nl and into .ie, or such, if that's what you're up to.
If that is Samsung's fetish, they might want to investigate the North Coast of California. We call 4500 feet of altitude "hills" in these here parts (Finland's highest peak doesn't clear 4,350 feet) ... and I'm pretty certain that the Redwoods are a lot taller than any tree ever grown in Finland.
Probably explains why all my Great Grandparents emigrated from Lapland to Mendocino County ;-)
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
