Forget Nokia: Finland's promising future is to be server central Finland isn’t just known as the country with the highest number of saunas and heavy metal bands per capita, it also counts Linus Torvalds as its most famed technology son and has a growing data centre development culture. Of course, all Scandinavian countries have the potential to grow their data centre businesses, but Finland …
doesn't share lingusitic or cultural traits with the three Scandinavian countries
Linguistically? no, Finnish is not related to any Germanic language, but note that about 5% of Finnish citizens have Swedish as their mother tongue, and the language has an official status here. Culturally, Finland is very similar to Scandinavian countries because of the long shared history. After all, for hundreds of years Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden. We also have the same majority religion (Lutheran).
So the connection of Finland with Scandinavia is much more than "just happens to be in the neighbourhood".
Finland is said to enjoy strong legal protection over government surveillance of data, particularly when compared to neighbouring Sweden.
That is the current situation, but in a fit of incomprehensible me-tooism, officials now want to change that and allow mass surveillance of the net. Pure stupidity. It would not really help with security (baddies can always find a way around such wiretapping when aware of it), and would remove one competitive advantage in the data centre business.
I'm not totally au fait with the history of the eastern roman empire, but I don't think you got either a 38 hour working week, (m|p)aternaty leave or 20+ days annual paid leave in the Byzantium Empire.
However, you probably did have "at will" employment, just like our enlightened murcan cousins enjoy.
Wow, there is only one meaning of "Byzantine"?
1.
a. Of or relating to the ancient city of Byzantium.
b. Of or relating to the Byzantine Empire.
2. Of or belonging to the style of architecture developed from the fifth century ad in the Byzantine Empire, characterized especially by a central dome resting on a cube formed by four round arches and their pendentives and by the extensive use of surface decoration, especially veined marble panels, low relief carving, and colored glass mosaics.
3. Of the painting and decorative style developed in the Byzantine Empire, characterized by formality of design, frontal stylized presentation of figures, rich use of color, especially gold, and generally religious subject matter.
4.
a. Of the Eastern Orthodox Church or the rites performed in it.
b. Of an Eastern Catholic church that maintains the worship of the Eastern Orthodox Church or the rites performed in it.
5. often byzantine
a. Of, relating to, or characterized by intrigue; scheming or devious: "a fine hand for Byzantine deals and cozy arrangements" (New York).
b. Highly complicated; intricate and involved: a bill to simplify the byzantine tax structure.
There is a "Scandinavian" country not mentioned here; one that could really do with the money. Iceland.
More totally green hydro electricity than any reasonable person could want, bags of cold places/water with which to keep server farms cool (you could probably just leave the windows open in the winter) and more unused land than you could shake a stick at.
An island, so security - who's coming and going - is very easy to maintain.
Handily placed for internet wiring being mid Atlantic with, one imagines, many cables already running to it or nearby.
Quasi EU status might mean that data stored on servers there remained within the EU for the purposes of public procurement. (One for the lawyers).
Intelligent, well-educated, mostly English speaking populace. Six hours from Washington DC (Helsinki is 9), 3 from London (same for Helsinki).
What's not to like? Apart from the occasional volcano/earthquake... And the fish...
The fish is nice. The Tri Franskur (I might've misremembered that) restaurant still serves whale, owing to the owner buying 2 tonnes of it just before whaling was banned. I should've tried puffin the last time I was there but it didn't occur to me till afterwards.
There's also plenty of vacant buildings left over from the boom.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
