Company to cut jobs in multimedia division Nokia plans to cut jobs at its multimedia business unit, which develops smart phones and gaming devices, as part of a global plan to trim spending on research and development.In the first nine months of 2004, Nokia spent around 13.2 percent of net sales on research and development (R&D), according to Kari Tuutti, director of communications for Nokia’s Multimedia Business Group. The company aims to cut this to between 9 percent and 10 percent of sales by the end of 2006.The company will cut “a few hundred” jobs, mostly in Finland and Germany, at the multimedia business unit, Tuutti said. Around 2,000 of the unit’s 3,000 employees work in R&D, he said. The proportion of R&D staff is much lower across the rest of the company: 20,000 of the company’s 50,000 or so workers are involved in R&D activities. The cuts at the multimedia unit spell the end for unusual accessories such as Nokia’s Imagewear range of jewelry: pendants with tiny screens to display pictures beamed from camera-phones. “We have discontinued future development of such products,” Tuutti said.The unit will switch its attention from accessories to high-end camera phones and music devices. Nokia has already sold 10 million phones able to play MP3 music files, Tuutti said. “Now we are working on increasing memory capacity and developing music download services with operators,” he said.Nokia’s strategy of working with mobile phone network operators to develop music download services contrasts with that of rival Motorola Inc., which is developing a cell phone to work with music downloaded from Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes Music Store. Technology Industry