Google leaves Norway and Sweden Google insists its not the financial crisis, but merely an effort to defragmentize the company. Fact is that Google is closing its offices in Norway and Sweden. Both offices in Trondheim and Luleå, Sweden will be closed down. Only the sales office in Oslo will remain in Norway. Especially the closing down of the Norwegian office is a bit surprising. Google opened its offices in Trondheim in 2006, trying to gain access to a tech industry with a big focus on search which was built up around the University of Trondheim. Norway has a big tech industry where several high tech companies are clustered together in Trondheim. All employees of Google Trondheim, 40 in total, are offered jobs elsewhere within Google which indicates it really isn’t a cut back. Most Googlers working in Trondheim probably don’t want to leave the country though, which gives other tech companies like Fast (which originally developed Alltheweb), Microsoft and Yahoo a chance of acquiring some pretty interesting employees. Google Trondheim is said to have had a big focus on its Silicon Valley connections. Most work was therefore being outsourced to the US and not to Norwegian companies. These companies therefore won’t be very disappointed by the closing of the Google offices. And when Microsoft and Yahoo might ‘jump into the gap’ left open by Google this might very well also be a good thing for Norway. CommentThe Craze for Waze1 comment  What was once a mobile app only in Israel, is now a global mapping marvel. On top of all this world wide recognition, Waze has now attracted the interest of Facebook a...... read more
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Comments (4)
I think we have to be clear that the development offices are closed, but Google will still be as active as before through their sales offices.
Interesting development. Although clustering of development teams sounds logical, it also seems to me as a way to cut costs.
I find it interesting that Google is leaving this Search Technology cluster in Norway. This was the research environment that gave birth to Fast Search and Transfer (recently acquired by Microsoft) and Fast’s AlltheWeb search engine (acquired by Overture, later Yahoo!).
Therefore I think most of those Google engineers will end up at Yahoo or Microsoft.
Zo 18 jan 2009, 23:26
Shit, really? What a mistake! Not because I'm from Trondheim myself but because they have access to sooo many talented and highly intelligent people in Trondheim, being the the home of the Norwegian Technical University http://www.ntnu.no/ Although saying that I can imagine one of the reasons being that the Scandinavian countries don't give much revenue to the search engines as the search engine market itself is very much still in the development stage. But in my opinion more the reason to be there!
Google very much depends on technical talent and surely that should be where their focus should be in a economical downturn.
I don't think this will have an impact on SEO's in Norway though. The Scandinavian countries are finally seeing the importance and oppurtunity of search engine marketing and optimisation. And thank god for that as Google Norway must have the shittest SERPs in Europe. Don't know how people find anything relevant when they search.
Ok end of rant. Must stop =)
Ma 19 jan 2009, 12:02
@lisa try google south africa, its even worse! Paid is more relevant than natural....very weird...
Ma 19 jan 2009, 12:39
Hello! I don't think this will have an impact on SEO's in Norway though. The Scandinavian countries are finally seeing the importance and oppurtunity of search engine marketing and optimisation.
Di 20 jan 2009, 12:12