Sulake

Infobox Company
company_name = Sulake
company_
vector_
company_type = Private
foundation = 2000
founder = Sampo Karjalainen
Aapo Kyrölä
location = Helsinki, Finland
origins =
key_people = Timo Soininen, CEO
Juha Hynynen, COO
area_served = "32 Countries" cite web
url = http://www.sulake.com/
title = Sulake: Habbo
publisher = Sulake Corporation Oy]
industry = Teen Social Networking
products = Habbo Hotel
Mini Friday
IRC-Galleria
revenue = profit"$140,000,000 (2007)" [http://www.arcticstartup.com/2008/05/29/sulake-is-planning-to-go-public/ 3]
operating_income =
net_income =
num_employees = 300
parent =
subsid =
owner =
homepage = http://www.sulake.com/
footnotes =

Sulake (Finnish pronunciation [IPA|ˈsu.lɑ.ke] , Finnish for "fuse") is a multi-million dollar multimedia company based in Helsinki, Finland. It was founded by Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrölä in 2000. Sulake's main focus is virtual worlds, casual multiplayer games and social networking. The corporation's CEO is Timo Soininen, also from Finland.

The company's first project, Mobiles Disco, was intended to promote a Finnish rap group called "Mobiles" in 1999. As the site grew in popularity, the (Finnish) rooms were swamped with foreigners, so a English international version was created. This made Karjalainen and Kyrölä wonder about possibilities for financial success. Sulake then sold the concept to the Finnish telecom giant Elisa Oyj through the advertising agency Taivas.

Karjalainen and Kyrölä then created an online multiplayer game called Lumisota (Snow Wars). The game is similar and is now what Habbo's Snow Storm game is based on. The game was a further success and became associated with Radiolinja, a Finnish telecommunications network, which Elisa Oyj has invested in.

Sulake then was approached by clients, such as Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom and Coke Music, which is now known as MyCoke. Karjalainen and Kyrölä assisted their clients with these projects, but now Sulake's main focus is Habbo Hotel.

In August 2000, "Hotelli Kultakala (Hotel Goldfish)" was launched as part of Elisa's portal, which is now the foundation release of Habbo Finland.

Deloitte's "Technology Fast 500 EMEA" list ranks Sulake as the 12th fastest growing technology company in Europe.cite web
url = http://www.sulake.com/pressroom_releases_29112006.html
date = 2006-11-29
title = Sulake ranks as the 12th fastest growing technology company in Europe
publisher = Sulake Corporation Oy]

In April 2007, Sulake acquired Dynamoid Oy, the company behind the virtual community IRC-Galleria.

Employment and Offices

Sulake has 21 offices in different countries around the globe, with their headquarters (HQ) in Helsinki, Finland. The national offices are responsible for running the community of each hotel. Overall, Sulake employ around 300 Sulake, IRC-Galleria, and Habbo Staff, plus an additional 200 in-game Habbo Hotel Moderators.

Projects

* Habbo Hotel:The Sulake company provides Habbo in 30 countries, with an estimated revenue of $77,000,000 for 2006.cite web
url = http://www.habbox.com/site/content/view/1898/254/
title = Habbox: Sulake
publisher = Habbox] Sulake earns this revenue via four methods; selling in-game credits, website advertisement and sponsorship and Habbo-related merchandise.

* Coke Music:The first incarnation of chat environment within Coke Music (now MyCoke), CokeStudios, was designed by Sulake. The most recent version (v2.x) of CokeStudios was programmed exclusively by MyCoke's operators, StudioCom.

* Virtual Magic Kingdom:Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom was a concept by Disney and created by Sulake.cite web
url = http://vmk.disney.go.com/vmk/en_US/aboutVMK/index?name=DeveloperCreditsPage
title = Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom: Developer Credits
publisher = Disney]

* The Wreck Room:"The Wreck Room" is a mini-game by Disney for the promotion of their 2003 movie Holes. The game design was based from Habbo.cite web
url = http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/liveaction/holes/main.html
title = Holes on DVD --Official Website
publisher = Disney]

* Mini Friday:MiniFriday is a small research project on virtual worlds on mobile phones, with concept and design by Sulake.

* IRC-Galleria:IRC-Galleria is the largest WWW-based virtual community in Finland. It was founded in December 2000 by Tomi Lintelä as a photo gallery for the Finnish users of Internet Relay Chat (IRC). It was acquired by Sulake along with its previous owner, Dynamoid Oy on April 2007. As of February 2007, IRC-galleria boasts over 400,000 registered users and 6 million images.cite web
title = IRC-Galleria
url = http://irc-galleria.net/index.php
publisher = Dynamoid Oy]

References

[ [http://www.consecol.org/vol6/iss2/art9 Conservation Ecology: The Value of Tropical Forest to Local Communities: Complications, Caveats and Cautions ] ]

External links

* [http://www.sulake.com/ Sulake] — official website