Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Nokia and Siemens to reveal product line-up

Nokia Corp and Siemens AG are pressing ahead with the merger of their networking business despite the 420m euro ($555m) bribery scandal at Siemens that led them to announce last month the merger would close in the first quarter, rather than January as originally anticipated.
The two companies said they would start sharing the proposed product portfolio plan for the future Nokia Siemens Networks with employees and customers starting in early February. It is ready to begin talks on the proposed future product portfolio with employee representatives.


The issue is a sensitive one because the two companies have already said they plan a "headcount adjustment" over the next four years of 10% to 15% from the initial combined workforce of 60,000.Planning was still underway to assess the personnel, site, and country-level impact of the proposed product portfolio plan as well as expected transition times and requirements for ongoing support for existing products. However, the two companies said the business and personnel implications will be available only after the closing of Nokia Siemens Networks.The creation of Nokia Siemens Networks has been given antitrust approval by the European Union and the US.In December, the two companies said that in the light of the investigations of Siemens, the scope of which included the carrier-related business to be transferred to the new company, they intended to adjust their agreements in order to have Siemens conduct an appropriate compliance review prior to closing the transaction.

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