Nokia shows Ovi brand the door

Nokia will abandon its Ovi brand, the handset manufacturer said today.

The company had been pushing the mobile services brand hard since its 2007 launch, but the Ovi services will rebranded as "Nokia services" later this year. It is not clear how much of this is to do with Nokia's tie-in with Microsoft, a deal that will involve the integration of the Ovi services and content store with Microsoft's Windows Phone Marketplace.

"Ovi" means "door" in Suomi, a Finnish language. As of April, there were 5 million downloads a day of Ovi-branded apps. According to a Nokia blog post today, there will be "no planned disruption to the service roadmaps" despite the rebranding, which will start with the "first services on some of the new Nokia devices in July and August" and finish by the end of 2012.