Microsoft is officially dropping the Nokia name from the Lumia line of devices, showing off the first glimpse of the Microsoft Lumia brand today.
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The company will transition all of the Nokia branding to the Microsoft name, a process that has been ongoing since the mobile device portion of the company was sold to Microsoft for roughly $7 billion in April.
"When we announced that the Nokia Devices & Services business would become part of Microsoft, we also shared that Lumia, our smartphone brand, would become part of the Microsoft family," the company explained in the announcement. Since then, we have naturally been making the change from Nokia to Microsoft in our websites, packaging and other consumer touch points."
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Nokia, struggling in the mobile space over the past few years, aligned itself with Microsoft's push for the Windows Phone. Lumia devices became the signature Windows smartphones, meant to represent the best of what the operating could be on mobile. The products themselves were well-received, and had value to Microsoft for pushing its OS, both of which lead to the acquisition. Microsoft can now sell the smartphone line (which, crucially, has some brand recognition) as its own in a battle against Android devices and iPhones for market share.
"This is a very exciting time for us and for Lumia products," said Tuula Rytilä, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Phones at Microsoft. "You might have seen that in the last couple of months, we have already made some name changes to our apps to better reflect that these apps now come from Microsoft. Soon, the brand name change will be complete across any channels still using the Nokia Lumia name.
"Our global and local websites are going through a transition as we speak and in the coming days our social channels will get a new name too - they will be called Microsoft Lumia. We would like to invite our Lumia fans to continue to follow us and always be up to speed with the latest device news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram."
