Nokia Sells its Symbian Professional Services Group to Accenture

Accenture has agreed to acquire Nokia's Symbian Professional Services unit, which is responsible for Symbian OS customer engineering and customer support. The unit provides engineering consulting and product development services on a global basis to mobile phone manufacturers, as well as chip manufacturers and mobile operators.


Services provided by the Symbian Professional Services teams include 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.


Approximately 165 people will transfer to Accenture as a result of the agreement. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close by the end of third quarter 2009.


"The acquisition of the Symbian professional services unit will enhance Accenture's existing embedded software, product-development and testing skills to help players in the mobile solutions ecosystem address ever-more-demanding time-to-market and quality requirements," said Jean Laurent Poitou, managing director of Accenture's Electronics & High Tech industry group. "The capabilities we are acquiring from Nokia will help support the tremendous growth our clients can expect from the explosive adoption of converged mobile multimedia services and will expand Accenture's role as a key supplier of new tools, products and solutions to clients in this industry."http://www.accenture.com/PSShttp://www.nokia.com