Bing Maps to show Nokia branding on all mobile devices in the future

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According to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, the terms of its deal between Nokia and Microsoft will include Nokia branding on all Bing Maps properties in the near future. That means that all mobile devices that use Bing Maps - even those made by other manufacturers - will see Nokia branding on the maps themselves.

The branding is a result of the agreement between Nokia and Microsoft where Microsoft will use Nokia's mapping properties for Bing Maps. "You'll starting seeing the word 'Nokia' on a map that you get from Microsoft properties over a period of time," said Elop in an interview with Pocket-lint. "Even if you are on a BlackBerry device, who recently said they were going to start using Bing Maps. In the time ahead, what you will see is, across all the Microsoft properties including Bing maps, more and more work will be done by Nokia."

This certainly won't sit well with device manufacturers that use Bing Maps as opposed to Google Maps (BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, as noted, some Verizon Wireless Android devices, and all Windows Phone smartphones at this point), as they will effectively be advertising a competitor's device with the mapping application. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft handles this and whether it makes exceptions for its larger partners.