Nokia and Accenture have entered into an agreement for Accenture to acquire Nokia’s Symbian Professional Services unit responsible for Symbian OS customer engineering and customer support.

The unit provides engineering consulting and product development services on a global basis to mobile phone manufacturers, as well as chip manufacturers and mobile operators.

Services provided by the Symbian Professional Services teams include advanced technical support, techniques for enhancing performance, memory, and power, advanced error diagnosis and repair, and turnkey software development services that can be used in a range of technical environments.

Approximately 165 people will transfer to Accenture as a result of the agreement. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close by the end of third quarter 2009.