The intensified COMECON cooperation in computer production from the late 1960s was paralleled with increased Soviet-Finnish cooperation in the same field. For the Finnish part, it was scientists and private enterprises that became most involved with the Eastern bloc computing during the 1970s. Their interactions with the Soviet bloc counterparts tell a story of cooperation and competition based in a (non-aligned) country balancing between the cold war Western and Eastern influences. One of the reasons why Finland was interesting for the Soviet experts as well as for the intelligence body KGB was because IBM had a Finnish subsidiary that could operate freely, but Finnish IBMers also grew interested in the Soviet markets when the IBM World Trade began discussions and then doing business with the USSR in 1971. Therefore through IBM Finland (and its parent organization) one can study how IBM viewed and possibly responded to the COMECON project of producing and selling its series of “IBM-compatible” computers. In 1974, Elorg Data Company was established as a Soviet-Finnish joint enterprise. The Finnish partners involved Nokia Company and a major bank, the Soviet side the V/O Electronorgtechnica (which owned 58 per cent) and a petrol company. The purpose of the Elorg Data was to market and sell computers made in the Eastern bloc, especially the Unified System computers, to customers in Finland. Thus, this Soviet export effort and its products encountered Western type of competition in the Finnish markets. Curiously, Elorg Data also cooperated with IBM Finland when the former bought or leased IBM equipment to its computer center in Helsinki. In addition to the trade relations that also involved some Swedish players, the Soviet national security agency KGB apparently considered Finland a fruitful place to collect information on the latest Western computer technology. With some archival sources on KGB’s interest in IBM, this paper aims to consider the usefulness of the concept of Finlandization, i.e. bending to the requests of a neighbouring superpower, as a possible explanation for the increased influence of the Soviet Union in the field of information technology in Finland and perhaps elsewhere in the 1970s.