The firm said 4,000 jobs worldwide would be cut - including a total of 700 jobs from Nokia's UK sites.

Nokia will also transfer a further 3,000 employees to outsourcing and consultancy group Accenture, which will take over Nokia's Symbian software.

The Finnish firm is moving from Symbian to Microsoft's smartphone technology.

The firm recently confirmed the deal with Microsoft last week to jointly develop smartphone technology, which will cut costs by about 1bn euros a year.

Under the terms of that deal, Nokia agreed to start using the Microsoft's operating system on its smartphones instead of its own Symbian platform.

"This is about keeping focus within Nokia on Windows Phone. It helps to get rid of any doubts on where this company is going," said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner.

Nokia's response to the smartphone threat from competitors such as Apple's iPhone and phones using Google's Android system has been long been a key investor concern.

'Dark day'

In Finland, where Nokia is expected to cut 1,400 jobs, unions said the losses were not as bad as had been feared.

"This went slightly better than expected, because Nokia transfers Symbian development," said Pertti Porokari, chairman of the Union of Professional Engineers in Finland.

"These 1,400 people to be laid off are mainly MeeGo coders and they should have quite good chances to find new jobs," he added.

However, unions in the UK were not so happy.

"This is another dark day for the British economy," said Tony Burke, Unite assistant general secretary.

"What is very disheartening is that mobile phones and their associated technology are one of the growth areas in the British economy, yet this still does not stop a successful company such as Nokia throwing people out of work".

Nokia hopes that the job cuts and restructuring will also help produce savings of 1bn euros for the firm by 2013.

"With this new focus, we also will face reductions in our workforce," said Stephen Elop, Nokia president.

"This is a difficult reality, and we are working closely with our employees and partners to identify long-term re-employment programmes for the talented people of Nokia."

Mr Elop later told reporters at a press conference near Helsinki that he believed this would be the full extent of the job losses.

He added that the restructuring announcement was the "full plan for as far as we can see into the future".

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13207148]

Threads merged.

Elop and the rest of the directorsboard is a burning platform.

2013 Nokia RIPDEAD, Microshit owns them.

I am not even sure we will see any Meego handset from Nokia anymore...

But atleast we have MeegoDE for N900 which is progressing nicely.

Well...if your management decides it is no longer in the business of innovation (meego , R&D), then why not lash yourself to the slowest horse in the race (MSFT)? Really makes no sense to me....but it is typical of corporate decisions (at least in my experience). Nokia wanted north american leadership and this is what they get......I bet some talented developers at Nokia could take the meego football and score... if they are willing to sever the corporate umbilical (I recommend it).

I can't beleave anyone want to work with or use accenture. Every time I have worked with them they are expensive and useless and have as a policy to add lots of strange things in the contract. They won't deliver. Nokia screwed big time...

Nokia stock is rising!

Only if Nokia was actually expecting something relevant to come from Accenture. Nokia allready killed Symbian months ago, what Accenture does with it doesn't really matter.

Nokia is just using Accenture as a place to dump 3000 workers. That way they save bucketloads in redundancy package costs and bad press that would come from cutting those jobs. Shameless bastards.

Ok. So accenture don't need to deliver something? And Nokia don't have to pay accenture? If that is the case they can play with the code for a year and the hit the trash and Nokia Will be fine

Elop was just interviewed in a Finnish talk show "A Plus". He's a very good talker, said that the Accenture people will be working with Symbian first and then educated to work with Windows Phone and other platforms. Windows Phone device might be coming this year, but it's announced very close on the actual sales day. He really seems to believe that the new strategy is the best way to go.

Also - there was no single word about MeeGo.

I'll post a link for the interview if it comes available online. Elop really knows how to talk, he's very convicing, but personally I believe that Windows Phone won't save Nokia. People just aren't buying WP7 devices.

Edit: The Interview (needs Flash) http://areena.yle.fi/video/1303932100425