Microsoft to drop Nokia name from Lumia

SEATTLE: Microsoft Corp looks set to ditch the Nokia name from its Lumia range of smartphones just months after buying the Finnish company’s handset business.

According to a post on Nokia France’s Facebook page on Tuesday, the page will change its name to Microsoft Lumia “in the coming days.”

Microsoft declined comment.

Under the terms of the $7.2 billion deal, which was struck in September 2013 and completed in April, Microsoft acquired Nokia’s handset business, though not the name of the company itself.

Finland’s Nokia continues as a networks, mapping and technology licensing company. It owns and manages the Nokia brand and only licenses it to Microsoft.

Microsoft has said in the past it plans to license the Nokia brand for its lower-end mobile phones for 10 years and to use the name on its smartphones only for a “limited” time, without saying how long that might be.

New Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella has begun to reduce the scale of its phone-making operations. —Reuters

Byco commences new storage facility

KARACHI: The Byco Terminals Pakistan Ltd. has built a storage facility at Mehmood Kot district Muzaffargarh, with storage capacity of 4,500 metric tonnes and expansion capacity of up to 35,000 tonnes.

This would increase the company’s refined petroleum products storage capacity from 13,500 to 150,000 metric tonnes, says a press release on Thursday.

“The facility will help streamline the company’s up-country supply chain of petroleum products,” stated Byco Chief Executive Officer Imran Farookhi.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2014