World's largest mobile phone maker Nokia announced to transfer all its Symbian related activities including hand off of 3,000-strong workforce to Accenture.
It is being seen as one of the biggest strategic move by the Finnish company since its inception as Nokia was gung-ho about the Symbian OS when it had acquired Symbian in late 2008. It came as a shock to many Symbian loyalists as the Espoo based mobile phone maker had launched few smartphones based on the OS couple of weeks back, the latest models being the E6 and X7. The N8 was the first model to be launched on Symbian followed by E7.
The transfer of all Symbian activities to Accenture makes the future of the Symbian operating system very unclear. Questions are being raised as the IT consulting company would also work on Nokia's Windows platform simultaneously. It is being speculated that Nokia would completely drop the Symbian by 2012 and embrace Windows full time since it has announced that Nokia would adopt Windows Phone as its principal smartphone strategy and innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.
"At Nokia, we have new clarity around our path forward, which is focused on our leadership across smart devices, mobile phones, and future disruptions," said Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, in a statement.
The Finnish company had entered into an partnership with Microsoft in February this year for using its Windows based OS for future smartphones and other devices. It had then announced to cut 7,000 jobs globally. Out of this, 3,000 would be transfered to Accenture and the rest would laid off from Nokia's payroll completely. However, the company clarified that laying off process would be done in phases but would be completed by 2012.
Nokia said that the entire process is a part of its strategy to restructure its business processes and its alignment with future trends and demands. The company has consistently loosing its market share in smartphone sales, mainly to Apple and Android devices.
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