By Wireless Week Staff
Accenture has entered into an agreement to acquire the professional services unit of Nokia responsible for Symbian customer engineering and customer support.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. About 165 Nokia professional services engineers and consultants in the United Kingdom, Finland, Japan, Korea and Australia are expected to transfer to Accenture as a result of the agreement.
Rather than stepping away from Symbian, Nokia says the deal signals its commitment to the open source community and the Symbian ecosystem.
The agreement allows the Symbian professional services team to “realize its full potential” in the supply of independent services to the open-source ecosystem, said Peter Ropke, senior vice president of Devices at Nokia, in a statement. “In combination with Accenture’s strong brand, global sales organization and broad technology skills, the unit’s software engineering capabilities will be a significant benefit to customers throughout the industry.”
The transaction “underscores Nokia’s commitment to the open-source community and the Symbian ecosystem,” he said.
The deal is targeted to close in the next 60 to 90 days.
Nokia’s shares were down more than 2 percent this morning, trading at $13.08.
Yesterday, the company reported a 66-percent second-quarter profit drop and predicted its global market share, at 38 percent, will remain flat this year.