Nokia Employees Allegedly Walk Out Of Work To "Digest" Major Windows Phone 7 Announcement

Tweet

Today, Nokia announced the most major shift in the company’s history when they unveiled a major partnership with Microsoft that sees the Finnish phone manufacturer eventually phasing out Symbian and minimizing their MeeGo involvement in favor of Windows Phone 7. This is a big move for Nokia, and Nokia is a fiercely independent company who’s always stuck to Symbian. So, nobody was surprised today when reports came out of Finland that “thousands” of Nokia employees were walking out of the company in protest. Though Nokia PR was quick to say that they were allowed to leave and say that this wasn’t some passive-aggressive protest.

This story started when the Helsingin Sanomat, the largest newspaper in Finland, reported that thousands of employees were leaving, and an accompanying photo apparently approved it. These walkouts allegedly happened at Nokia’s Tampere and Oulu offices – and the Tampere office in particular is said to have some 3,000 employees who allegedly are working on Symbian. According to TheNextWeb.com, while many Nokia employees are excited about the company’s switch to Windows Phone 7, many of them are worried about their jobs. And rightfully so.

Nokia’s press relations folks were quick to spin this story their way. They quickly reached out to several media outlets who reported this story and said that “some of our employees – not thousands” left at around 14.00 (2pm) in accordance with Nokia’s “Flexitime” policy in order to “digest” the news.

Nokia would have to people that the people weren’t storming out of their offices in a huff, but instead headed home to get some kahvi and think about what was announced today. The reality is that – like the Elop memo said – this is a shocking course change for Nokia. Some (if not ‘lots’) of Symbian engineers will lose their jobs, and I think it’s perfectly acceptable for them to be upset and get some time off.

Anyway, we’ve been doing wall-to-wall coverage of the Microsoft-Nokia deal. Our man Chris Smith is in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress next week and can bring you anything that happens there. Keep us in your RSS reader for all the latest updates.

(Image Credit: Helsingin Sanomat)