Re-organisation of Jolla company

[David]

Jolla has almost certainly cut the hours of nearly all staff as they did last time. Whether it’s to the same degree, I don’t know. That time, in 2015, they also killed their hardware division and set a new aim to sell a whole secure mobile solution to corporations, particularly those who don’t trust the US.
The latter was drawing a not-too-fine line yet now they don’t want any Russian state ownership.

Rostelcom, knowing Aurora OS would be becoming the OS of choice for the whole Govt, probably insisted on selling their shares at a premium and so Jolla wouldn’t have been able to find a new buyer. I still don’t know if the process can force Rostelcom to sell at a fair price – and of course, disclosure of extending Aurora into the wider Govt may change that price.
I have little doubt that Jolla’s deal with Rostelcom saved them.

As I understand it, Jolla’s economic situation, prospects and understanding of the latter are far better now than in 2015. They say they’re making a profit for the first time ever (on what?). Their immediate debt was a mere €100 which is what makes me think Jolla chose this situation. How was it in their interests to do so?

It’s strange we still know so little about what’s going on and how serious the situation is.

By the way, reading native law is hard, never mind oddly-structured foreign law in another language.

[mips_tux]

@eson

So why don’t you just consult the “Finnish Company Law” your self? I’m pretty sure there is few lawyers among us, that can give you an accurate answer. So please DuckDuckGo it.
Here’s a small start.

Finnish law makes a distinction between private limited companies (Oy) and public limited companies (Oyj). The private limited company is the basic form, its economic function being the equivalent of the GmbH in Germany and the Ltd in England.

In France, there is no distinction and it is the same law for small or big companies and whatever their legal forms for this kind of procedure !

[tuplasuhveli]

I’m not an expert in this field of the Finnish Law, but maybe I can help some people to understand the Finnish restructuring.

According to the law, there are no time limits regarding the court, but the responsible district court will give deadlines to the debtor and the creditors along the way - although in many cases these deadlines have been surpassed for various reasons. However, after the application is sent to the court, it will usually take 6-12 months (median being roughly 11 months) before the reconstructuring proposal is confirmed or refused. In theory, the reconstructuring plan can be confirmed in the court during the same day the application is sent.

1. An application for restructuring is sent to the court by the company, the creditors or both and in some cases by an external expert.
2. The court will make a decision to start or not to start the restructuring - they will mainly consider the debtor’s ability to pay the debts. I don’t know how long this can take, but at least civil courts in Finland are heavily over-worked.
3. If the application for reconstructuring is accepted, an external investigator ordered by the court will document all assets and debts of the company. They will draw up a proposal regarding the restructuring. Under normal circumstances, the investigator has four (4) months to come up with a proposal.
4. If the proposal is accepted by all parties, the district court will confirm the reconstructuring and the external investigator will monitor, that the company operates as was agreed.
5. The reconstructuring will last up to 10 years, in rare cases even beyond that.

OT:

@robang74

Considering the welfare in Finland [1], it is reasonable that they will receive a unemployment coverage that will let them to live in fair decent conditions even for their standards.

This is true. Most workers are members of an unemployment fund, which means they will receive an earnings-related allowance, that is roughly 50-70 % of the earnings (before taxes) of the last 6 months before unemployment. It can be even more, if the unemployed person has children.

EDIT: missing the word “day”
EDIT: added information about the work of the investigator (Finnish law, written in Finnish)

[mips_tux]

thanks @tuplasuhveli
You give an answer. I think that Finnish law is fairly similar to French law in this respect.

[ohnonot]

@mips_tux

n). YTJ Tietopalvelu

Thanks for this link!

[Jolla]

Here’s a recap to Jolla’s situation: Jolla has been placed to a corporate restructuring process during the summer and an administrator has been nominated by the court. The administrator is due to make a restructuring proposal during November, which will set the next steps for Jolla. Meanwhile, we do not publish components. Thank you for your understanding during this extraordinary time and we look forward to be able to update on this matter the soonest!

[Valorsoguerriero97]

Just hope you’ll be fine for the future! Thank you for your communication Jolla

[smatkovi]

Is there something we can do to help?

[mips_tux]

Legally, I don’t think there’s much we can do.
For the rest, I think the best we can do is to show that the community of users and developers is large, active and united. And above all, to stay in the ship and not leave it

[flypig]

It’s good to have this update. I’m sure we’re all hoping for the best and rooting for a successful outcome. I wish everyone at Jolla the best.

[tortoisedoc]

There is something the community could do; however it works only if all of it is included:
buy more sfos licenses.

from finder.fi

https://www.finder.fi/Matkapuhelimet+ja+oheistarvikkeet/Jolla+Oy/Tampere/yhteystiedot/2640873

the minus last year was 900K about;
900k/50€ = 18000 licenses. Now what’s the likelihood of being able to raise such number of licenses? I dont know.

[robang74]

@tortoisedoc

the minus last year was 900K about;
900k/50€ = 18000 licenses. Now what’s the likelihood of being able to raise such number of licenses? I dont know.

This means selling 18k licenses for years. Moreover, how many licenses should be sold for fulfill the €7M debt? 140k licenses. Considering to pay back this debt in 10 years without interest (at this time interest is not less than 5% per year and 1.05^10 = 1.63) it meas to sell 18k+14k=32k licenses per year for 10 years. Considering also the interests, then 18k+23k=41k licenses per year for 10 years. Europe has 764M habitants, it means that 0.05% of them will buy a license in the next 10 years. The 0.05% includes new born babies upto 99yo grannies.

This just to stay alive and supporting the current hardware which will be 15-20 years old in 2033. To develop further SFOS, we can assume that they need €2M per year (900k of loss plus 1.1M for further developments) which are 63k of licenses per years, sold to 0.08% of the entire Europe population in the next 10 years.

As you can see, there is something broken in this business model and Volla is not much different.

[tortoisedoc]

Claiming “something broken” is preposterous.
The fact there might not be a market is a fact.
Or, the existing market (=community) being too small to support the effort.
But that’s yet another challenge to pick up - find a sustainable market for such a product

[robang74]

@tortoisedoc

Claiming “something broken” is preposterous.

Thanks because I learned a new word “preposterous” (absurd).

It is not absurd, it is math and it is a very simple math. The basic, not even a business plan.

This forum collapsed with less than 300 users, is it right? Are they less than 300?

I saw 80 hearts (+1 mine) on Jolla reorganization official answer the last time I checked, 80 x 4 = 320.

Now imagine that this forum should deal with 300k users which is 1000 times more.

[tortoisedoc]

Let me help you

The preposterous above that I wrote was not intended as “absurd”
as described here

Definition of PREPOSTEROUS

but rather as the italian version, defined here:

https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/ricerca/prepostero/

so more like “putting the carridge before the horse”, in english (languages are hard )

Anyways, what I get out of this is, we won’t be getting any updates any time soon Too bad.

[miau]

The forum did not collapse. A member of this forum posted his opinion about the flaging mechanism and a few people responded to it. Nothing more, nothing less.

[robang74]

@miau

The forum did not collapse.

Opinions. Under different perspectives, different opnions.

[Seven.of.nine]

To better @Jolla 's financial situation I suggest (repeatedly) to set up a subscription model. 50 for the licence and 25 per update is it worth and would bring steady income for Jolla.

Or create a premium subscription model with some additional service, like e.g. remote maintenance or remote system monitoring/debugging. This would also improve Jolla’s ability to find bugs and solve problems not only under laboratory / testing conditions but in real life situations.

[Seven.of.nine]

Dear friend, I never was in any business school. 25 per update is half a carton of cigarettes, so what?

And I tuned / tweaked SFOS to match my needs and I’m rather happy with it. An Android phone I wouldn’t even take that if I got money for using it.

[miau]

And why are you posting here and not making billions of dollars with your own OS if yu really know what people want and need?