Microsoft fully revamps its MSN portal, Bing mobile apps to be rebranded MSN too
Microsoft has fully overhauled its MSN portal to make it more deeply integrated with its other services. Alongside this, it will also be introducing a rebrand of its Bing mobile apps for Windows Phone, iOS and Android.
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes a loop Microsoft opened in February, when an update to the Bing apps on Windows Phone was read as a sign of increasing platform unity inside the company. Today that unity gets a name: the entire Bing mobile app suite is being rebranded as MSN, per The Verge's report on the rebrand, with versions for iOS and Android due alongside the Windows Phone originals.
It also revives a dormant property. MSN has been a mobile afterthought since Microsoft launched its last new-look MSN for mobile phones back in 2007; folding Bing's consumer apps under the banner turns a legacy web portal into a cross-platform services brand. The move lands amid a busy week for Microsoft's consumer push — the $433 Lumia 830 mid-range phone and the Lumia Denim update were both announced on September 4.
First-order effects
- Bing's identity as a consumer app brand effectively ends: existing Windows Phone, iOS and Android users of the Bing apps become MSN users, and Microsoft's advertising teams now sell a single MSN-branded app portfolio rather than a fragmented Bing suite.
Second-order effects
- Rival portal and news-app publishers on iOS and Android — Yahoo above all in this category — gain a well-resourced competitor that ships on their home turf rather than only on Windows Phone, where Microsoft's reach had been limited by its small phone share.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Microsoft's consumer properties consolidate around a few umbrella brands delivered wherever users are, decoupling services like MSN from any single operating system — a structural retreat from the Windows-centric branding of the Ballmer era toward the services-first posture of the current one.
The trend: Consumer internet brands are consolidating into cross-platform service umbrellas, with Microsoft trading the Bing name for a single MSN identity across all three major mobile platforms.