Nokia slashes 1,800 jobs after improved Q3 results: Layoffs come as Nokia changes developer playground once again

Nokia Corp. (NOK) could well be on its way to reversing the downward spiral that it’s been on for about three years. If the company’s just-reported earnings for the third quarter don’t build overwhelming confidence in that notion, the firm’s new CEO Stephen Elop has at least bought himself some more patience from investors.
Nokia reported a net income of $740 million, a considerable improvement from the year-ago period when it reported a $782 million loss. Stock is up at least 6.6% to $11.55, but that won’t mean much to the 1,800 employees that Nokia said it plans to sack.
Nokia said the layoffs are part of its ongoing plan to “accelerate its transformation and increase effectiveness.” In layman’s terms that means less executives and employees will be required in the company’s smart phone and services division. In rather unclear terms, Nokia said it would also be “streamlining certain corporate functions and corporate research activities.”
It’s been a long time coming on the services front, but the company said it finally plans to go all in on its suite of Ovi services and deliver a more end-to-end service structure that can be integrated across its full range of devices. Nokia also announced plans to develop new and more compelling services under the Ovi umbrella.
Without mentioning any changes other than “plans to renew product creation,” Nokia continues to grasp its need to develop more competitive smart phones. The company offered no specifics about the design and manufacturing processes, but it did lay out a series of changes designed to streamline and consolidate development across Nokia’s fragmented group of operating systems and developer tools.
In an effort to “empower” developers to create applications for both the Symbian and MeeGo platforms, Nokia said it will focus on Qt as the sole application development framework going forward. Nokia also announced plans to support HTML5 for application development on Symbian and MeeGo as well as its own web browsers.
This also means the company will be dropping its roundly criticized branding strategy for Symbian. There will be no more Symbian^3, Symbian^4 and so on, rather Qt will serve as the platform for all upgrades forward and be made available to all existing Symbian^3 users and any new Symbian users from here on out.
“We’re making strategic technology decisions that will accelerate our ability to offer the strongest possible opportunity for developers and the richest possible experience for consumers,” CTO Rich Green said in a statement. “For developers, it will open up a huge installed customer base for their applications. For consumers, it means a more compelling engagement with their Nokia product in terms of access to the best applications in the marketplace and a constantly improving product experience. We firmly believe that the choices we have made will not only mean significant opportunity and success for our developer partners, but for Nokia as well.”