Last month Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said that software support for Symbian phones would continue until 2016 at the earliest. It’s now become clear why he was able to give that date with such confidence.
Nokia and Accenture have published details of their agreement for the outsourcing of Symbian software development and support activities, which was first announced at the end of April.
The agreement will see Accenture providing Symbian-based software development and support services to Nokia ‘through 2016’. As part of the deal, around 2,800 Nokia employees from various sites will be transferred to Accenture. Everything’s expected to be finalised in October 2011.
As well as Accenture supporting and developing the Symbian platform, Accenture will also ‘become the preferred supplier to Nokia on their transition to Windows Phone’ - which means employees are likely to be transferred from Symbian projects to work on the Windows Phone platform.
Marty Cole, chief executive of Accenture Communications and High Tech group, said “We look forward to partnering with Nokia as they continue to support Symbian and transition to the Windows Phone ecosystem. The highly skilled group of technologists and engineers transferring to Accenture will complement our current mobility skills and enhance the breadth, depth and scale of our capabilities, allowing us to meet the growing global demand for mobility services across many industries.”
Accenture will also work with Avanade, a Microsoft-focussed technology service company in which it owns a majority share, to provide further services to Nokia.