Today An article was posted on Nokia Conversations (The Official Nokia Blog), laying out Nokias long-term strategy. Below is an extract of the portion relating to MeeGo R&D and Symbian job losses (or ultimate joblosses). Nokia is a company that I try to gain better inroads with and develop better working relationships, but when I read stuff like this and how the whole Nokia N900 situation was handled it makes me want to get out the big stick and give them a good beating.
Nokia was the big Sleeping giant of the past and it pains me to see the errors of the few affecting so many.
Today Nokia announced its third and fourth steps in transformation.
Nokia laid out plans to align its global workforce and consolidate its site operations to deliver upon the new strategy, as well as the projected cost savings announced last week. Nokia expects the total reduction of personnel, across all sites and countries, to total 4,000 employees (out of approximately 65,000 worldwide, not including NSN) by the end of 2012. This includes an estimated 1,400 employees in Finland. You can read more about the impacts in Finland in our Finnish blog, Nokia Ääni. Nokian suomenkielinen blogi, Nokia Ääni, kertoo tarkemmin vaikutuksista Suomessa.
Reductions are expected to take place in phases until the end of 2012, linked to the rollout of Nokia’s planned product and services portfolio. The planned reductions will have the greatest impact on the Symbian and MeeGo R&D. In addition, approximately 3,000 employees are planned to transfer to Accenture to support the continued delivery of Symbian software development and support services. In accordance with local country legal requirements, discussions with employee representatives started today.
Nokia plans to consolidate its R&D sites so that each site has a clear strategic role and mission. Consolidating sites and activities will increase speed and accountability as Nokia ramps up capabilities and competence development on each site.
The Nokia finland employees have already braced themselves for this hit and one of the messages resonating from the recent MeeGo Summit Finland is that there are opportunities out there and this is the time to seek them out. Nokia’s Mikko Terho (One of the good guys) was quoted as saying “Meego is the business man distrobution and you are a businessman for yourself ”
