RIP: Symbian

This slide was just presented by Stephen Elop and Nokia CFO, Timo Ihamuotila, at Nokia's Capital Markets Day. Although there's no date listed, it's clear that Symbian -- a "franchise" OS that Nokia will "harvest" -- will be wholly consumed by Windows Phone on Nokia devices just as soon as Nokia and Microsoft can complete the transition. It won't be immediate, but it seems like 2012 will be the year that Nokia pulls the cord on life support. Regardless of the actual date, who in their right minds would invest their development time or consumer dollars in a smartphone OS that has no future within the company? One more slide showing the post-Symbian reductions in R&D spending after the break.

Nokia workers mourn death of Symbian, thousands walk out

We know how you feel about the apparent death of Symbian, and you had to figure that those most affected by it wouldn't be feeling too good either. Those people are, of course, the 1,500-odd workers at Nokia's Tampere office who have crafted the OS through the years, over a thousand of whom apparently walked away from their jobs today as a sort of non-violent protest -- or maybe just to get a preview of what their Friday afternoons will look like once Elop starts dropping the axe. It should be noted that they used their flexible work schedules to enable this, so this is one orderly bit of social dissonance that shouldn't result in any accelerations of whatever layoffs are to come.