14 DAY TRIAL // Redmond this week announced that it was giving up the Nokia brand for Windows Phone-powered handsets, going instead for Microsoft Lumia, a name that better highlights its commitment to the mobile industry.
But while giving up on Nokia for Microsoft Lumia makes sense, it appears that the company is also preparing a different strategy that will surprise many people around the world: the Windows Phone brand is slowly abandoned, as Microsoft is now putting in place a completely new strategy for its smartphone business.
Microsoft revealed in a post today that the name of the official Windows Phone Facebook page would also be renamed to “Microsoft Lumia,” even though it’s pretty clear that this account, which is only designed for fans of its mobile operating system and not for the Nokia brand, has no relation with the company’s decision to drop the name of the Finnish phone manufacturer for new devices.
“In the next few days you'll receive a message directly from Facebook about the name of this page changing. We're about to become Microsoft Lumia! Watch this space for more news soon,” the official Windows Phone Facebook page reveals.
Possible switch to just “Windows”
In addition to all these changes, rumor has it that Microsoft is also planning to switch from Windows Phone to a new strategy that will rename the mobile operating system to just “Windows” in order to try to make the most of the popularity of the desktop platform.
This new approach does make sense in this context and it appears that Microsoft is planning to market all its operating systems as Windows in the near future with the very same purpose: bring more customers onboard in an attempt to capitalize on the success of the PC version of the OS.
There’s no doubt that this strategy can pay off really fast, but Microsoft needs to play its card right in order to make sure that it doesn’t create more confusion among potential customers.
Just imagine that someone with little IT knowledge purchases a phone that’s running Windows, but instead of the full-featured desktop experience, they get the smartphone platform that’s limited to the apps in the Windows Phone Store.
Of course, there’s a lot of work to educate customers and Microsoft most likely knows this very well, so it remains to be seen if this strategy is indeed adopted or not. Either way, expect more news on the future of Windows Phone in the coming months, when a new preview build is likely to go live for testers.
Update: changed the original "Microsoft Giving Up on Windows Phone Brand" title to better reflect the name switch for the smartphone platform.