Nokia R&D Workers Researching and Developing New Job Leads, Redux

Nokia is taking the ax to its research and development group. Again. This morning the company said it would cut around 220 R&D jobs in Japan. This, just four days after announcing plans to eliminate 330 jobs in Finland and Denmark.

The stated reason for the reductions: An effort to better align the company’s operations with its focused portfolio of future products. Seems Nokia (NOK), which typically spews out 50 or so new phones a year, many of them unremarkable, plans to concentrate on a smaller number of more “iconic” devices going forward.

In other words, Nokia is going to work a little harder to catch up with Apple (AAPL), which has really shown up the company these past few years. As Bengt Nordstrom, chief executive of telecom consultant Northstream, told Reuters earlier this year: “As much as iPhone and App Store is a success for Apple, it’s a humiliating defeat for the rest of the mobile industry. Twenty years of efforts from operators and vendors to create mobile applications that customers like is overtaken in a heartbeat by someone that never done it before.”