Nokia, Windows Phone to Be Rebranded Microsoft, Windows: Report

A purported confidential document has surfaced online hinting at Microsoft's plans to remove the Nokia branding from its upcoming devices this holiday season, alongside reports of plans to drop the 'Phone' from the Windows Phone name and logo as part of the transition to the unifying 'Threshold' Windows 9 update.

"As part of our phased transition, we will drop the manufacturer name [Nokia] from product references during the Holiday campaign," stated one of the slides (Seen Below) from the leaked document, titled 'Product Naming'.

The leaked internal document suggests that Microsoft will be removing the Nokia branding altogether, leaving Lumia as the only brand name for its upcoming smartphones. In addition, the recently launched Nokia Lumia 730 Dual SIM, Lumia 830 and Lumia 735 are also said to be the final devices carrying the 'Nokia' brand name.

Contradicting what the newly leaked document suggests, a report from June hinted Microsoft would rebrand the Nokia Lumia smartphones to 'Nokia by Microsoft'.

Geek On Gadgets, the website that procured the purported confidential document, added that Microsoft is also planning to gradually remove the 'Phone' from its 'Windows Phone' brand name until it fades away completely. This fits in well with the company's announced plans for its upcoming 'Threshold' update (expected to be called Windows 9) that will merge the phone, tablet and desktop platforms into a unified operating system.

On a related note, last month Nokia was spotted hiring engineers, designers and camera specialists for upcoming devices, on LinkedIn job-listings. Nokia's Senior Vice President of Strategy, Sebastian Nystrom, later confirmed it was hiring for "new products businesses."

Interestingly, when Nokia completed the sale of its mobile business to Microsoft earlier this year, the announcement detailed that the Finnish giant would not manufacture mobile phones for a while, and concentrate on its telecommunications and services business in the interim.

Microsoft in July announced the biggest job cuts in its 39-year old history - with some 18,000 jobs being axed, of which 12,500 were from the Nokia acquisition. The Redmond giant further dumped its Android experiment and also announced that the Nokia X series of phones would be making the transition to Windows Phone as Lumia devices.