Microsoft Corporation’s New Mobile Brand Won’t Be ‘Microsoft Mobile’

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We’ll have to wait a little longer to find out the new brand that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) will use to market its in-house smartphones, because Microsoft Mobile apparently isn’t it. People had thought that Microsoft accidentally tipped its hand when it sent a letter to suppliers explaining that Nokia Oyj would become Microsoft Mobile Oy (Oyj and Oy are Finnish for public company and corporation respectively).

Microsoft Mobile just a legal construct

“Microsoft Mobile Oy is a legal construct that was created to facilitate the merger,” said former Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) CEO and current executive VP of the Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) Devices Group Stephen Elop, reports Chloe Albanesius for PC Mag. “It is not a brand that will be seen by consumers.”

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is allowed to use the Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) brand for now as part of its acquisition of Nokia’s handset business, but it will eventually have to switch over to its own brand. Elop pointed out that this is really in the hands of the marketing department, but it seems like it would be to Microsoft’s advantage to make the change sooner than later so that it can distinguish itself from Nokia, which is very much still in business and focusing on its other businesses. It’s probably hoping for a more dramatic unveiling than a leaked letter to suppliers, and we’d like to see something more exciting than Microsoft Mobile anyways.

Elop stands by positioning Nokia behind Windows Phone

In his online Q&A, Elop also said that he thought Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) made the right choice in focusing on Windows Phone at the exclusion of Android because it allowed the company to carve out a niche instead of competing head-to-head.

“When we made the decision to focus on Windows Phone back in 2011, we were very concerned that a decision to pursue Android would put us on a collision course with Samsung,” said Elop. “That was the right decision, as we have seen virtually all other OEMs from those days pushed to the side.”

He also said that while abandoning the operating systems Symbian generated ‘a lot of emotion’, it was necessary to make the company competitive once again. He didn’t see the point in to convince users that Nokia Corporation’s (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) new OS was better than Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS which had shipped three years earlier. While that choice undoubtedly upset some people, Elop is probably right that being the top company selling phones for the third most popular mobile OS is probably a better path than sticking with an OS that nobody really wants (just ask BlackBerry).

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