End of an era: Nokia phone division to be renamed Microsoft Mobile


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Kinda sucks that they would kick out a VERY well known brand name rather than just owning it. 

 

however at the same time I am looking forward to being able to buy a "Surface Phone" :D

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I still feel this was a VERY bad decision by Microsoft (not taking the Nokia name), but time will tell. They really believe their brand resonates well with consumers. Possibly they are seeing something I don't.

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Why not leave it as Nokia as no-one gives a monkeys whether Microsoft owns it, and it probably won't increase sales.

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Kinda sucks that they would kick out a VERY well known brand name rather than just owning it. 

 

however at the same time I am looking forward to being able to buy a "Surface Phone" :D

wrrrrrrrrrrroooooooonnnnnnggggggg.  The brand flavor of the year is "One".  Even ASP.NET is now renamed One Asp.Net.

 

So now you get one Phone!

 

And if you get more than one phone.  I'll get super mad because there's no such thing as two phones that wouldn't make sense!  I'll go CRAZY!! aaahaahhaah!!!

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From the article it seems like the company is being renamed but the products may retain the Nokia name.  Since Microsoft bought only the mobile division they probably need to differentiate it from the other divisions that are still Nokia, such as Here maps.  You'll probably still see Nokia phones release by Microsoft Mobile in the near future.

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IIRC, the didn't buy the Nokia name, just the mobile division. Therefore they cannot use it and have to rename.

The article mentions this:

The company left behind by Microsoft will also keep rights to its name Nokia though Microsoft has bought the licence to use the Nokia brand name for 10 years as part of its $7.2 billion deal.
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Question, is this just the name of the unit in Microsoft, or will this affect phone branding.

 

Ie the new Microsoft Mobile division released the new Nokia Lumia xxx ?

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The article mentions this:

We will have to see how it plays out. As it was reported that MS is only licensing the Nokia name in emerging markets. We won't see what it really is until the finalization.

 

Keeping the Nokia name into perpetuity for mobile devices would have been a smart move on MS' part and isn't unusual. Corning no longer makes Corningware, but they had no problem licensing the name to the current manufacturer.

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Makes sense.. as many like to point out, it's not exactly all that big in the market share game yet. Not everybody knows Nokia. You'd be hard pressed to find somebody who doesn't know Microsoft however.. between the massive PC marketshare, throw on consoles, other big name software packages.. it'll probably have a lot more "pull."

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Makes sense.. as many like to point out, it's not exactly all that big in the market share game yet. Not everybody knows Nokia. You'd be hard pressed to find somebody who doesn't know Microsoft however.

Wait what? Nokia is probably the most recognized brand in the mobile phone space. They literally dominated phone sales for a very long time. To many people around the world a mobile phone is synonymous with the Nokia name.

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Wait what? Nokia is probably the most recognized brand in the mobile phone space. They literally dominated phone sales for a very long time. To many people around the world a mobile phone is synonymous with the Nokia name.

And look how well they're doing at the moment. Past history isn't amounting to much at the moment is it? If somebody bought out Blackberry I'd probably lose that name too considering how "well" it's being received nowadays. I'm not dissing Nokia, I've used their products for many years, still using a Lumia now.
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And look how well they're doing at the moment. Past history isn't amounting to much at the moment is it? If somebody bought out Blackberry I'd probably lose that name too considering how "well" it's being received nowadays. I'm not dissing Nokia, I've used their products for many years, still using a Lumia now.

Yeah Nokia isn't faring well at the moment, but that wasn't the statement you made. You said the MS brand name is stronger than the Nokia brand which I don't think it is, especially in the area we're discussing right now; mobile phones. I'd actually venture to say that MS brand is considerably weaker at the present time in the consumer space in general. Microsoft is having a real tough time crossing their brand over from a B2B brand to a consumer focused brand. I honestly don't think they should even be trying to do this under one brand, but I'll stop digressing. Very little from MS is "winning" in the consumer space right now. The Xbox is possibly the only exception and they just can't seem to jump the chasm with it...

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They should drop the Microsoft brand for anything consumer-related and use Nokia brand (keep Microsoft for their Business and Enterprise products). Microsoft Mobile, Phone, etc, etc just doesn't sound good. Nokia Lumia, Nokia Xbox, Nokia Music, Nokia Video sounds way better than Microsoft Anything - it's just not a consumer-friendly name...

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Can you believe it? Microsoft just buried nokia forever. They want to prevent nokia from abandoning windows phone which is understandable and after all these year of making people get used to the nokia produced a decent windows phone and suddenly the name disappear and the only people will remember how abysmal the phone once was with windows mobile era that barely sustainable product in consumer mind.

 

The whole idea of buying nokia is to ensure both company can have a better integration whether it's software.hardware and service in the cloud. In fact, Nokia has a long relationship with the customer than microsoft back in the days and now it's even better opportunity to promote well known brand and not changing the name that bring back the old memories of how poorly back when they selling windows mobile if you know what i meant. Dumb move!

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Wow, hope they don't sink Nokia like they most likely will try to do. Feeling very nervous at letting go of a strong well perceived brand of Nokia for MS instead. Hasty? Yes. Poorly thought out? yes. Poor effort at mending a poor brand perception? Not this again!  :/

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I still feel this was a VERY bad decision by Microsoft (not taking the Nokia name), but time will tell. They really believe their brand resonates well with consumers. Possibly they are seeing something I don't.

 

They wheren't allowed to use the nokia brand anyway. they had a time limited lease on the name to ease transaction, but if it's going to change it's best to change as early as possble.

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The article mentions this:

 

As I recall there was some extra stipulatiosn with this. namely that they could use it for old products, but I'm not sure they where actually allowed to use the Nokia brand on new products. was mentioned in news articles at the time of the purchase. 

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They wheren't allowed to use the nokia brand anyway. they had a time limited lease on the name to ease transaction, but if it's going to change it's best to change as early as possble.

That was the deal they negotiated. My point is that this was a bad move on their part. They should have negotiated a perpetual license to use the Nokia name and paid a royalty to do so. Nokia would have been a perfect brand for them to use as a consumer brand...

 

To me, buying Nokia without the name gets them essentially a patent collection. Since they are losing the Nokia name they are going to drop to the bottom of the heap phone manufacturing wise and continue their struggle to build a consumer brand. The current path MS is trying is highly unrecommended in business... Using the same brand to straddle two completely disparate markets (Enterprise and Consumer)...

 

Who knows? Maybe MS will eventually get recognized as a consumer brand, but I'm sure it is going to take a MASSIVE investment to pull off. We'll see if they lose the Enterprise in the rush.

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You're assuming Nokia was willing to let them license the brand. all signs on this points to "no". hence why they got the limited 10 year license with stipulations and limits on usage. 

 

As you should be aware through the times, nokia has been a very diverse company who has changed directions and product lines many times, often when they change direction they will sell of the part of the company they are no longer using but they have never sold the license to keep using the name. The closest they ever came to doing that was Nokian. And most peopel today despite the names don't realize and/or connect Nokia and Nokian. 

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You're assuming Nokia was willing to let them license the brand. all signs on this points to "no". hence why they got the limited 10 year license with stipulations and limits on usage. 

 

As you should be aware through the times, nokia has been a very diverse company who has changed directions and product lines many times, often when they change direction they will sell of the part of the company they are no longer using but they have never sold the license to keep using the name. The closest they ever came to doing that was Nokian. And most peopel today despite the names don't realize and/or connect Nokia and Nokian. 

I'm assuming Nokia wouldn't want to sell or license the name. It was MS' job to push the point or to pull the deal... I just don't see the value of the deal without the name... Unless you are doing a patent only play like Google did with Motorola.

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