14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia’s Devices & Services division is now part of Microsoft, as the sale transaction announced back in September 2013 was completed on April 25, 2014, and the Nokia name is no longer present on the company’s building in Espoo, Finland.
On Friday, right after the deal was announced as completed, Microsoft took down the Nokia sign from the front of the building and replaced it with its own.
This did not come as a surprise, as a previous leak had already unveiled Microsoft’s plans to rename Nokia Corporation/Nokia Oyj to Microsoft Mobile Oy, but could signal a wider change in branding that the Redmond-based software giant is planning.
In fact, the quickness to replace Nokia’s name on said building would make many people wonder whether Microsoft is indeed determined to continue keeping the Nokia name on new devices moving forth.
According to Nokia, Microsoft will continue to launch new devices under the Nokia branding, including new Lumia smartphones, Asha handsets, and feature phones.
Back in September 2013, the two companies announced that Microsoft was also buying the Lumia and Asha brands along with the Devices & Services unit, but that the Nokia brand remained with Nokia.
The same happened with all the patents that Nokia holds in wireless technology, which are being licensed to Microsoft on a non-exclusive basis for 10 years. The HERE mapping and navigation services remain with Nokia as well.
Although Nokia did say that new devices will be released with its own name on them even after the acquisition, and despite the fact the Microsoft has licensed the right to use the branding on new devices, some might still question software giant's plans on the matter.
On the one hand, they are certainly right to do so, especially since Microsoft was initially understood to have agreed to launch only Asha and feature phone devices with the Nokia name attached, but not Lumia smartphones and tablets.
There's also the press release that Microsoft published on Friday to announce the closing of the transaction, which mentions that former Nokia President and CEO Stephen Elop is joining the company as head of the Microsoft Devices Group, which includes Lumia smartphones and tablets, Nokia mobile phones, and other divisions.
Given that Lumia devices were mentioned separately from Nokia mobile phones, one would clearly start wondering whether any new Windows Phone-based Nokia devices will be launched.
Nokia still has loyal fans, and Microsoft will build on that
On the other hand, it's quite clear that getting rid of the Nokia branding on new devices will do more harm than good, and Microsoft is certainly not looking for that, especially since it plans on focusing on the affordable mobile devices market with the Nokia mobile phone business.
And this also includes Windows Phone products, since the platform is highly popular in the entry-level segment of the market. Nokia Lumia 520, the cheapest handset running Microsoft's mobile OS, is currently the best selling Windows Phone out there.
With three decades of expertise in the phone industry, Nokia is a valuable asset not only courtesy of its patents and engineers, but also due to the popularity of its name, especially in Europe and emerging markets out there.
Although it has lost a lot of ground in the smartphone segment, Nokia remains one of the top mobile phone manufacturers, and continues to sell hundreds of millions of devices each year.
As Stephen Elop rightfully noted in an open letter on Friday, this was possible due to Nokia's wide reach around the world, and courtesy of great loyalty from its fans. This is a foundation that Microsoft needs to build on, not to destroy.
And this applies to Lumia devices too, despite the fact that the series is only three years old. With Nokia owning over 90 percent of all Windows Phone devices out there, many are associating its name with the operating system.
Lumia devices have come a long way since the first of them arrived on shelves, and they appear set to grow even more in the coming years, driving Windows Phone upwards as well.
New Lumia handsets will be different
Moreover, new devices in the series might prove to be far better than existing ones, given that both the hardware and software inside them will come from the same company.
Of course, new Lumia handsets and other Nokia mobile phones will be built by the very same people that made them before, since all of them were transferred to Microsoft when the transaction was closed, but things might change when it comes to the collaboration with people making the software loaded on them.
Stephen Elop has underlined this as well in the aforementioned open letter, noting that Microsoft and Nokia Devices & Services will work together as an expanded family to deliver the best of what the technologies they own has to offer.
What remains to be seen, however, is how long it will take Microsoft to stop making Nokia devices and to launch such handsets under its own name. Regardless of whether these will be Lumia smartphones or feature phones, the change is bound to happen sooner or later.
When it comes to smartphones, however, there's little chance that Microsoft will keep the Lumia name after getting rid of the Nokia branding on new products, whenever that might happen. The Lumia name is already associated with Nokia, and this is something that cannot be easily changed.
At the moment, I would rather grab a Nokia Lumia than a Microsoft Lumia, and I'm sure that there are many of you who see things this way. A year from now, however, I might see things differently.
Keeping the Nokia branding on new Lumia products will help both Microsoft and Windows Phone, that's for sure. Launching new Nokia Asha devices and Nokia mobile phones will also allow the Redmond-based giant to remain one of the top handset vendors out there, since this is what it has become when closing the transaction with Nokia.
As I said before, new Lumia devices will not be the same as those already on the market, since it will be Microsoft making them, and not Nokia, but things might turn to the best in the end.
The software giant might not be a phone maker, but those Nokia 25,000 employees that were transferred to it as part of the deal certainly know more than a thing or two about making great devices, and this will weigh heavily in the building of new products.
And with Windows Phone already gaining great new features, as the latest updates for the platform have shown, I'm certainly excited to see what the next Nokia Lumia devices will have to offer, even if made by Microsoft.