CEO Stephen Elop continues to ring the changes at Nokia.

The company has announced two forward-looking decisions. The first sees the reorganisation of its NAVTEQ mapping business with its social location services operations, while the second finalises details of its outsourcing deal with Accenture.

Under this agreement, Accenture will provide Symbian-based software development and support services to Nokia until 2016. In order to do this, around 2,800 Nokia employees located in China, Finland, India, the UK and the US are expected to become Accenture employees during early October, 2011.

From Symbian to Windows

As well as developing the Symbian platform, Accenture will also become the preferred supplier to Nokia as it moves to Windows Phone. In this way, Accenture will provide what are referred to as 'mobility software, business and operational services around the Windows Phone platform to Nokia and other ecosystem companies'.

Nokia will also work with Accenture majority-owned outfit Avanade. It's focused on Microsoft technologies.

"Our collaboration with Accenture allows us to meet our ongoing commitment to support our Symbian smartphone customers and continue to leverage the talent that has the deepest experience on the platform," said Jo Harlow, executive vice president for Smart Devices, Nokia.

"As we move our primary smartphone platform to Windows Phone, we will look to explore potential opportunities to tap this talent pool as they develop and expand their knowledge and capabilities beyond Symbian."

Where you at?

The other announcement sees the formation of a new Location & Commerce business unit, which will be formed by integrating Nokia's NAVTEQ division with its social location services operations.

It's been charged with developing a new class of integrated social location products and services, and Michael Halbherr has been appointed executive vice president to run the business.

"Focusing on location and commerce is a natural next step in Nokia's Services journey," said Nokia CEO Stephen Elop.

"We will provide next generation social-location applications and commerce to differentiate Nokia. We also aim to extend our content and services offerings to all consumers by making them available to partners and customers on a wide variety of devices and operating systems."

[source: Nokia (Accenture/Location)]