Fans of branding confusion will be pleased to hear Microsoft hasn't ditched the Nokia phone brand quite yet. It's just announced a new entry level mobile phone, badged with the Nokia name: the Nokia 215, dubbing the handset its "most affordable Internet-ready entry level phone yet" - and aiming it at first time mobile buyers starting in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe in Q1.
Likely Microsoft is more comfortable carrying on trading on the brand of the company whose mobile making division it acquired last year (for some $7.2 billion) here at the barrel-scraping end of the device spectrum. The Nokia 215 is not a smartphone - so does not run Microsoft's Windows Phone OS - but it is a very inexpensive dumbphone: priced at just $29 before taxes or subsidies.
Low price aside, what's most interesting about an otherwise uninteresting mobile phone is that Microsoft is carrying on Nokia's strategy of trying...