It was the week that saw Nokia slim down and outsource Symbian, while PCCW’s latesttelecom spin-off plan wasrejected, and True and DTAC took each other to court in Thailand.
In another not-so-good sign for both Nokia and its Symbian smartphone platform, the handset maker announced that Accenture will take over software development and support services, along with 3,000 Nokia employees in five countries. Nokia will also lay off another 4,000 employees as part of a bit to cut €1 billion ($1.47 billion) in handset R&D spending.
But speculation remains rife that Symbian could be dropped, as Nokia has also contracted Accenture to help build an ecosystem around Windows Phone 7 with an option to “retrain and redeploy transitioned employees” to that end.
It was also the week that saw the Hong Kong stock exchange deny PCCW's request to spin off its telecom business into a listed business trust.
The Wall Street Journalspeculates that the exchange may have decided that whatever would remain of PCCW after the spin-off would be insufficient to justify being a separate listed company. Either way, it’s the seventh time PCCW has tried to reorganize its telecom business since 2006.
It was a week of legal squabbling in Thailand, with DTAC filing a court challenge to state-owned CAT’s agreement with True Corp to jointly invest in CDMA and HSPA services. DTAC CEO Jon Eddy Abdullah said the deal was anti-competitive and breaches the country’s joint venture law, with the potential to damage the country’s telecom industry.
True promptly struck back with a lawsuit to shut down DTAC completely on the grounds that its concession breaches the same joint venture law.