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Nokia focuses strategy, again
To the tune of 450 employees
Nokia is once again focusing its strategies and streamlining internal IT operations - this time to the tune of 450 employees around the world.
The streamlining comes in the Compatibility & Industry Collaboration activities in the Corporate Development Office unit, as well as internal IT, and will involve letting third parties take more of the strain in developing new products and services.
Given the world markets, and the mobile business, layoffs are unsurprising, but on planet Nokia this is all about "plans to focus the strategy of its Services unit to create a better, more simplified user experience across its services and to open up deeper and greater opportunities for third parties." That would mean cutting out the more pointless projects and folding the rest into Ovi.
The announcement is part of the on-going cost reductions at Nokia, but also states that more social-networking connections will be built into Nokia handsets, putting links to Facebook and its ilk directly into the camera application. Nokias already feature connections to at least Flickr and Ovi in the gallery, with the option to add more, but it seems that range will increase and move into the camera app itself.
Operators used to offer a significant subsidy to handsets which had a "send as MMS" option within the camera application. Though it's hard to imagine social networks stumping up cash for such a thing, it does reflect a shift in power. ®