Microsoft is set to shift focus back to the MSN brand, just one week after it announced that the messenger service would be shutting down for good later this year. Several Bing apps, including News, Sports, Travel, Weather, and Finance, are set to be re-branded under the MSN name.

Additionally, each app will be coming to iOS and Android, making this Microsoft's first step towards its new cross platform “mobile first, cloud first” vision. Microsoft largely abandoned the MSN brand shortly after the launch of Bing but it looks like the company is shifting its focus back once more.

Along with the impending re-brand of Bing apps, Microsoft has launched a preview of the new MSN home page, which will sync up with all Bing services currently available on Windows Phone devices along with the recently launched Cortana digital assistant.

The MSN home page still receives a fair bit of traffic thanks to it being the default home page on most versions of Internet Explorer. It's currently unclear what this app re-brand means for Bing overall, it is possible that we could see Microsoft phase it out and fully focus on MSN going forward- only time will tell.

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KitGuru Says: MSN Messenger isn't returning but Microsoft is aiming to bring the brand back to the forefront of Internet services. Do you guys think Microsoft will replace Bing entirely? It hasn't exactly taken off…

Source: Microsoft Blog via The Verge

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