Nokia brand gone soon, the "Phone" in Windows Phone too

This will probably not surprise many, but it looks like Microsoft is seriously planning on 'sunsetting' the Nokia brand.

The software giant has so far continued to use the Nokia name for phones, most recently with the Lumia 830 and Lumia 730 that were officially unveiled last week. However, a new rumor claims these two will be the last handsets to come with the Nokia brand on them.

As the image above shows (which is purportedly part of a leaked internal document from Microsoft), starting with this year's "Holiday campaign" the Nokia brand will be gone from Microsoft Mobile's devices. The same won't happen with the Lumia brand, which will live on.

Interestingly, back in July a Lumia 830 render was leaked sporting "Nokia by Microsoft" branding on the back, but the actual smartphone is just called Nokia. Perhaps this was to be a transition strategy that Microsoft subsequently dropped for whatever reason. So expect the next phones to come out of Microsoft Mobile to be called either just Lumia something, or Microsoft Lumia.

The company also has similar plans for the Windows Phone name. In this case, though, there will be a more gradual transition, during which the "Phone" in Windows Phone will fade away - until eventually it won't be there anymore. So Microsoft's mobile OS will be called Windows, just like its desktop OS. Since the two still aren't the same thing, this could of course confuse many people.

Microsoft is slowly integrating Windows Phone with desktop Windows (or so it's been saying for a few years now), so at some point the unified brand will make sense. Hopefully the timing will be right, as apparently there will be no "Windows Phone 9" release. It will exist, of course, but sans "Phone" in its name, as you might have guessed.

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