[hugh]

Nokia will axe 7,000 jobs and outsource its Symbian software development unit to cut 1 billion euros ($1.46 billion) in costs as it struggles to compete in the smartphone market.

Nokia, the world's largest phone maker by volume, on Wednesday detailed an overhaul of its phone business following its decision to start using Microsoft software instead of its own Symbian platform.

 

[Francois Caron]

Not surprising. Symbian is a dying phone OS. Android has clearly shown the advantage of their OS over proprietary platforms such as Symbian, namely cross-manufacturer compatibility. For phone app developers, that means fewer development platforms on which to reach the maximum number of customers. Same goes for the Windows phone OS and, due to its huge client base, Apple iOS.