Nokia has divested its Symbian Professional Services unit to Accenture for an undisclosed sum.
The move comes just over a year after the handset giant bought Symbian in what was perceived to be an open source confrontation with the Android platform. In June last year Nokia swooped on its remaining stake of Symbian to take total control in a cash deal estimated at Euro 265 million.
Under the transaction 165 Symbian staff will transfer to Accenture. The Professional Services unit provides consulting services to vendors and mobile operators.
Accenture will now look after advanced technical support, techniques for enhancing performance, memory, and power, advanced error diagnosis and repair, and turnkey software development services that can be used in a range of technical environments.
The move has been viewed by some analysts as part of Noka’s expensive distancing tactic away from the Symbian platform.
Analyst J. Gold associates commented, “Nokia keeps distancing itself from Symbian, divesting of nearly anything that is directly related. his reinforces our earlier position that Symbian is no longer strategic to Nokia’s success. Considering that Nokia is the world’s No. 1 cell phone maker, that’s bad news for Symbian.”
