Microsoft acquired Nokia’s phone business recently, and now that the deal is done the company is reportedly preparing to stop using the Nokia name to describe its Lumia smartphones.

That’s not a big surprise. When Microsoft announced the Lumia 730 and 830 this month the promotional materials barely mentioned Nokia by name.

What’s a little more surprising (but just a little) is that Microsoft also plans to stop calling its mobile operating system Windows Phone. Instead it’ll just describe future phones as running Windows.

nokia lumia 730

The details come from a leaked marketing document obtained by Geek On Gadgets and confirmed by the folks at The Verge.

If the report is accurate, Microsoft will shift its smartphone branding strategy before the 2014 holiday season.

When Microsoft bought Nokia’s phone business the company got the rights to continue using the Nokia name for a few more years… but Nokia continues to operate as a standalone company based in Finland. It makes more sense for Microsoft to put its own names on its phones… although it could be a risky move since Nokia has a long history in the smartphone industry and it’s possible some shoppers might not be aware that a phone with the Microsoft Lumia name on it is built by the same people responsible for Nokia Lumia devices.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has been taking steps to bring its mobile and desktop operating systems closer together. Not only do they both support start screens with live tiles, but Microsoft is encouraging developers to create Universal Windows Apps that will run on phones, tablets, notebooks, desktops, and eventually even Xbox One game consoles.

Still, if this move goes through, it could be a recipe for brand confusion. You can run iTunes on a Windows laptop… but you can’t run it on a Microsoft Lumia phone with Windows.

 

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22 replies on “Report: Microsoft to drop the Nokia, Windows Phone brand names”

  1. Microsoft is falling and soon you will hear a big splash.
    They still will put everything on Metro because they spent too much money on it to admit it’s a total disaster.
    Windows 9 will be a flop of proportions that no one can immagine, even bigger then Windows 8.

    1. Troll much?

      Wishful thinking aside, if it had been a total disaster then they would have dropped it already… Just like many of the other failed projects that MS also spent lots of money on, like the failed attempt to rival some of Google’s services…

      You’re problem is Windows 8 wasn’t a total disaster… Don’t confuse not doing terrific with it being terrible! At best it’s a clear exaggeration and simply shows a ignorance of how things actually work and how they actually compare…

      Besides, you’re going to be stuck with something like it anyway… Pretty much all the alternatives are headed towards similar solutions… Scalability and flexibility of software is the trend we’re headed to… like it or not!

      1. In same way you are right, that is the reason they keep insisting and that will kill Microsoft.
        BTW I’m not trolling, you perfectly know that a large part of the population hates Windows 8 and will hate Windows 9 too, considering it’s still based on Metro. You have your opinion and it’s ok but are they all trolls because don’t agree with you?

        1. No, MS isn’t completely suicidal… and the fact is they’re still making money and Windows is hardly their only product or even only platform they cater to…

          So, again, wishful thinking… whether Windows declines or not remains to be seen…

          No version of Windows has been instantly adopted… Even Windows 7 took years to become dominant version of Windows and most of that didn’t happen until after MS announced they were ending support for XP… but even now there are hold outs still using XP and even willing to pay lots of money for continued support…

          While MS has also had a long history of releasing a version of their OS and then continue to work and improve it over the life of the product…

          The main difference with W8 is MS never really intended it to be the end product but the first of a evolving product that W9 will only start to show us…

          The thing many don’t realize about Metro/WinRT is it’s not limited to how it has been used so far but developing new elements and moving away from legacy takes time in a product range that holds onto legacy for dear life even if it means that’s the main reason we have to worry about things like malware/viruses, etc…

          Never mind integrating old and new into a new seamless blend is a long process…

          Sure, like learning to walk, the early steps done with W8 often stumbled but there’s a lot of potential there that shouldn’t be ignored because of a slow start…

          People are just very impatient these days and the proverbial learning to run is not something all are willing to wait for…

          Besides, software, like our culture, is constantly evolving and what we’ll end up with will rarely resemble whatever we imagined from the start or even resemble what we had been used to…

  2. As if they haven’t caused enough grief for the Windows brand already, lets hitch another steaming pile to it hmm? I guess they have some clever strategy where failure = success?

    1. Or simply know they have no other choice but to provide a solution that provides similar scalability and flexibility as pretty much all the competition are going to provide over the next few years too…

      While failure is not what you think it is… Products don’t need to change the market or outdo every other product to still be a success… Never mind, ignoring what has always been a long term plan and pretending the beginning is what the end will be…

      Lots of things took time to become good, simply don’t be a early adopter if you can’t stand that process!

  3. old marketing horses know – never change well established brands and products abruplty. microsofts ignorance and arrogance ignored this since day one of this company. and all the time during 30 years now they failed miserably and btw lost a hell of a lot of money. if’s and when’s and probablies are all speculations. and fantasy. and btw neveer sell a bears xxxx before having him shot.

    1. And for the most expanding markets in Asia have not Microsoft brand same status than in west part of globe.Now when AOSP is very popular concept for most chinese smartphone makers.

  4. Oh yeah just calling it windows will be even less confusing to customers than things already are.

    1. Look at it this way, Microsoft tried to make Unix(-like) OSes happen once with Xenix. This move right here in concert with external efforts like Valves Steam-on-Linux might be their 2nd Attempt 😛

    2. Well, keep in mind they are planning on merging all the Windows platforms together… First will be RT and WP and then later the rest and it’ll be just one monolithic OS that adapts itself to whatever device it is installed on…

      Initial benefit would be the ability to purchase a app once and be able to use it on all your devices that use the same account… Then they’ll start adding scalability, like a phone that docks into a tablet and the OS automatically adjusts itself for the different form factor, and again when docked into a laptop dock or even a desktop dock for full range flexibility…

      MS already has a patent for being able to switch CPU’s when docked without needing to reboot the OS… So while Windows 9 may still be a fragmented platform with RT/WP being the other half… by Windows 10 it should all be merged into one and usability will change to one of scalability and flexibility…

      1. Yes, but “planning on” seems to indicate that things will be different for just long enough to confuse everyone.

        1. Possibly, MS definitely doesn’t have a good history on properly informing the public of what’s what but hopefully the new management won’t continue to make the same old mistakes…

          Though, the merger is suppose to be fast tracked at least… So hopefully, the confusing period won’t last too long if it does happen…

          1. I’ll believe MS when I see an actual working
            product. It may take MS 3 product releases,
            since with them, the 3rd time’s usually the
            charm, then the 5th, and every other release
            after that.

            I’d trust Apple to do a much better job on
            universal OSs, since Apple’s done this twice
            already, with 68xxx/PowerPC, and PowerPC/x86.

          2. Uh, no… you’re confusing running on multiple hardware with universal OS… Not the same thing!

            A universal OS hasn’t ever really been done… We’re talking about one OS that can work on all form factor types and not just on different hardware…

            Besides, MS did what you’re talking about too… Windows hasn’t always been a x86 only OS…

            While, Apple doesn’t get everything right the first time… The MacBook Air for example, took multiple tries before they got it right… The first one failed miserably for being too low powered and too high priced… along with other things that took a long time to get right like the power mag plug that kept wearing out and causing fires, etc…

            And it’s not like iOS was very friendly when first released… You couldn’t even set it up without first connecting it to a PC/Mac… So, let’s not pretend they got to where they are now overnight!

            These things take time for all companies, Apple is just usually much better in the marketing and usually bide their time until the product is finally ready rather than releasing it early and developing as they go, as MS does…

            But this does tend to slow things down to a crawl… OSX has remained OSX (OS 10) for over a decade for example, with only incremental changes but OS 11 may still be a year or two away still…

            So, also, let’s not confuse how MS does things with so called 3rd time when it’s really continuous… most versions of Windows were released before fully ready…

            XP took three years and two SP releases before it was finally more stable than Win95/ME… which were hardly very stable to begin with…

            While Windows 7 is really just a fixed version of Vista… which is why the driver support states Vista/Windows 7… They pretty much fixed the issues with Vista with the first SP release but unlike XP people were not willing to give it another chance and so they renamed it and tweaked it a bit more but it’s essentially still the same OS…

            And no, Windows 7 didn’t become the dominate version of Windows until after MS announced they were finally going to end support for XP…

            Plus there are plenty of other misconceptions of how things happened but that should clear things up enough to get the point across…

            MS has usually always been a work in progress… People today are just a lot less tolerant of being Beta users but on the flip side they’re also a lot less patient for updates and both MS and Apple’s way of doing things have their strengths and weaknesses…

      2. Many, many, many years ago they wanted to merge Windows NT, Windows ME, and Windows CE. The result was Windows CEMENT, which was a compliment to how well it worked. I expect this time to be no different.

        1. If they were still under the old management I’d have agreed but the new management has been making good decisions so far… If they continue then they have a chance this time… We’ll see…

          Being pessimistic is hard to avoid but it’s not like we never get surprised…

          1. I understand what you’re saying, but this is Microsoft. Even with new management, it won’t turn on a dime.
            I wish them luck, because I want [fair] competition, but MS very rarely succeed in anything outside of the desktop. I’m not holding my break this time.

          2. And they’re not turning on a dime… This is something they’ve been working toward for over three years now… at the earliest, Windows 9 would possibly mark the fourth year, along with the merged WP/RT platform… With another year or two before the final full merger…

            So, hardly overnight and something they’re putting a lot of work and long term planning into making happen…

            Even Windows 9 is not going to be rushed out… The preview coming soon will be basically a beta and will require testers to submit to monthly updates as MS continues to work on it before final release…

            So, not fast but they do seem to finally be putting the required effort… The rest depends on whether the rest of their plan goes as planned or not…

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