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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 March 2018
IBM Finland, a small national subsidiary, was at once a Finnish business and an interface to much larger networks of technological innovation and knowledge sharing. We contextualize its development within a nested set of institutions and identities: IBM's Nordic operations, its European business, and its World Trade Corporation. Its development was profoundly shaped by Finland's unique geopolitical position during the Cold War. IBM's internal structures anticipated and paralleled those of the European Union, with mechanisms for international cooperation, for the creation of transnational identities, and for the resolution and regulation of disputes between national subsidiaries.
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21 Anttila, Big Blue Suomessa, 12. This happened previously in 1937.
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23 Dickman, “Uudet tuotteet,” 320–21. Cf. Anttila, Big Blue Suomessa, according to which it was often difficult to get that (or any) help. Anttila had access to the original correspondence, which is now missing.
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29 Löytty, Reijo and Mäenpää, Tapio, eds., Bisneksiä Ihmisiä Muistumia. Kaskuja ja tarinoita työstä ja työtovereista Suomen IBM:ssä 1936–2000 [Businesses, people and recollections: Anecdotes and stories of work and colleagues at IBM Finland, 1936–2000], 2nd ed. (Kouvola, 2006), 29Google Scholar.
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31 Dagbok, a travel log, from 1947 to 1958, 40–42, IFA.
32 Dickman, “Några data beträffande förhållandena,” 6–9.
33 Winberg, Are, “Suomen IBM:n harjoittama alihankintatoiminta” [Subcontracting activity coordinated by IBM Finland], IBM Katsaus 15, no. 3 (1976): 48–49Google Scholar; Paju and Haigh, “IBM Rebuilds Europe.”
34 Anttila, Big Blue Suomessa, 41 (based on a letter from 1954).
35 Ulf Enbom was the name of the company's founder and manager; “Uusi muoto suomalaista yritteliäisyyttä” [A new form of Finnish enterprise], Reikäkortti 4, no. 1 (1958): 11–12Google Scholar.
36 Sten Enbom, phone interview by Petri Paju, 10 Apr. 2010 and 12 Apr. 2010. Ulf Enbom's company was closed in the early 1970s, if not before.
37 “Tietoa kortilla – jos nauhoillakin. Suomen IBM:n ATK-tarvikeosasto, IRD, Information Records Division” [Information on card – and also on tapes. IBM Finland's Information Records Division], IBM Katsaus 10, no. 2 (1971): 42–45Google Scholar.
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40 Anttila, Big Blue Suomessa, 35–36, 42. In addition, IBM had many more customers buying its electric typewriters and time equipment.
41 The coordinating organization was the State Computer Centre (in Finnish, Valtion tietokonekeskus). Prior to this, there had been other attempts at coordination, the latest being a data-processing committee in 1960–1961. Paju, Petri, “Computer Industry as a National Task: The Finnish Computer Project and the Question of State Involvement in the 1970s,” in History of Nordic Computing 2, ed. Impagliazzo, John, Järvi, Timo, and Paju, Petri (Berlin, 2009), 171–84, esp. 179CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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45 Dagbok, a travel log, from 1947 to 1958.
46 V. Troels-Smith (IBM World Trade Service Corp.) to B. Gronholm (Grönholm, IBM Finland), 12 Oct. 1956, World Trade Corporation legal records, regional files, European headquarters, box 108, RG 6, IBMA.
47 Teboil or Oy Trustivapaa bensiini Ab (Trust-free gasoline) belonged to the Punched Card Association in 1957. Roll of members, 1957, Archive of the Finnish Information Processing Association, Helsinki.
48 “E. A. S. E. -nimisen yhdistyksen perustamiskirja sääntöineen.” [Declaration and rules of an Association called EASE] Helsingissä, 27 May 1955. Liite, Electrical Accounting Service Engineers, ilmoitus yhdistysrekisteriin, 26 June 1955, an appendix to an official notification to the register of associations, Archives of the National Board of Patents and Registration of Finland, Helsinki; Anttila, Big Blue Suomessa, 42–43, 57.
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50 Svengöran Dahl, phone interview by Petri Paju, 10 Dec. 2010. Dahl worked for IBM Sweden from 1966 until the early 1980s and tried to promote unions elsewhere in IBM.
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54 Pale, Erkki, “Testamentti” [Testament], Reikäkortti 2, no. 2 (1956)Google Scholar: inner cover. The journal was published by the Punched Card Association, basically a user organization independent of vendors.
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58 Paju, “National Projects.” Olli Varho managed IBM Finland from 1973 until his death in an air crash in Rissala, Finland, in 1978.
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65 Cf. Schlombs, “Engineering International Expansion.”
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67 Lindegren, Olavi, “IBM Nordic Education Center – Lidingö” (in Finnish), ATK:n Tieto-Sanomat 16, no. 1 (1970): 12–13Google Scholar. The NEC was the third in a series of IBM World Trade Corporation boarding schools. The first and the second were located in Japan and in Mexico.
68 Suomen IBM 1969. Vuosiraportti, 16.
69 Suomen IBM 1970. Vuosiraportti [IBM Finland 1970 annual report] (n.d., n.p.), 15–16.
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72 Foy, Sun Never Sets, 100, 103–4.
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75 Ibid.
76 Suomen IBM 1970. Vuosiraportti, 15–16.
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78 Petri Paju, “Finlandized Computing or Business as Usual? Computer Trade between Finland and the Soviet Bloc in the 1970s” (paper presented at the 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine (iCHSTM 2013), Manchester, U.K., 23 July 2013.
79 Suomen IBM 1969. Vuosiraportti, 12.
80 Are Winberg, “Suomen IBM:n harjoittama,” 48–49.
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82 Kettunen, Katri, “Pioneerihenkeä ROECE:ssa” [Pioneering spirit in ROECE], IBM Uutiset 6, no. 7 (1971): 6–7Google Scholar. IBM Uutiset was the personnel magazine of IBM Finland.
83 Kettunen, Katri, “Systemotechnica -71:llä alkoi myyntimme Nl:oon” [Our sales in the USSR began with the Systemotechnica -71 (exhibit)], IBM Uutiset 6, no. 7 (1971): 8–10Google Scholar. The group responsible for the exhibit was IBM's Regional Office Europe Central and East in Vienna. One of the reviewers observed that this replaced an earlier hostility to the USSR on the part of Watson Sr., driven in part by its lack of respect for intellectual property.
84 Erik Anderson, interview by Petri Paju, 21 Aug. 2009. Anderson was assigned in Paris at that time (1972–73) and later became the CEO of IBM Finland, from 1992 to 1996.
85 A new company, IBM Trade Development, took charge of business in the USSR. Brad Lesher, “Don't Forget the Peanut Butter, George!” Fun and Funny Times Abroad (self-published, 2010), esp. 86.
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87 IBM Finland, Annual Report 1978. Appendix to translation of minutes kept at the ordinary meeting of stockholders of Oy IBM Ab, Helsinki, 18 Apr. 1979, Country Files, Finland, WTC Office of the Secretary, RG 6, IBMA.
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90 Anttila, Big Blue Suomessa, 68.
