Current Nokia Chief Executive Stephen Elop hinted on Tuesday that the Nokia brand could disappear since Microsoft, which acquired the Finnish technology company in September, could drop the brand on smarthphones in the future.

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Terms of the buyout of the losing Finnish phonemaker gave Microsoft a license the use the Nokia brand name for American company's affordable Asha mobile phones, but Nokia remains the owner of the brand. However, on its own, Nokia could not either use the brand on its own smartphone and tablets in the future.

Given these conditions, Mr Elop did not discount the possibility that the brand Nokia would be unheard of after a decade, although he said changes could still happen along the way.

Even at this point, the new owners of the Nokia company (not the brand) still has to decide what would be their next step or brand for the forthcoming devices.

"What we have to decide is what the brand will be. Because we have not decided what brand will be dominant for smartphones, that's work still ahead. And of course the way we'll go through that process is to assess with consumers what they respond most positively to, what conveys the best message and the best hopes of success," Slashgear quoted Mr Elop.

The probably disappearance of the brand could have been the reason that Nokia's old owners rushed to roll out on Monday the new Lumia 2520 tablet which coincided with the release of Microsoft's Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets and a day after Apple unboxed its iPad Mini.

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Mr Elop clarified that Nokia had worked with Microsoft before the announcement of the buy-in. "They're clearly interested in having different manufacturers build tablets and they saw in this, and continue to see, a very differentiated approach," he told CNET.

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