Bing Maps gets Nokia Brand and Possibly the Boot

The Microsoft/Nokia relationship gets a little confusing these days. According to Pocket-Lint:

Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop, has told Pocket-lint that we shall soon be seeing the Nokia brand name within other devices and not just the company’s own phones.

You’ll starting seeing the word Nokia’ on a map that you get from Microsoft properties over a period of time,” Elop explained to Pocket-lint in an interview behind closed doors at CES in Las Vegas. Even if you are on a BlackBerry device, who recently said they were going to start using Bing Maps.”

Interesting isn’t it? Nokia Maps on other devices. Here is the kicker…

Part of the relationship we established with Microsoft is that we are clearly placing a bet on the Windows Phone platform. [In return] they are placing a bet on our location-based platform: mapping, navigation and so forth,” said Elop.

Thus it appears, at least in Nokia’s mind, that Bing Maps might eventually be replaced with Nokia Maps. Clearly Nokia believes that they bring navigation and location to the partnership. I’m sure though, as with everything Microsoft related, this is going to be much more complicated than it should be. In a perfect world, Microsoft and Nokia would agree that Bing Maps should be replaced by Nokia Maps and get it done quickly and with minimal fuss. The reality is that there will probably be three mapping platforms. The old Bing Maps, the old Nokia Maps and this new hybrid Nokia Maps (powered by Bing?) that blends the two services.

Ugh, right? Check with Pocket-link tomorrow to see the full interview with Elop and hopefully more detail into what this means. Almost a year ago I talked a little bit about this scenario, maybe it is finally time.


Tags
Thoughts

Date
January 19, 2012