T-Mobile USA announced today that it will be selling Nokia’s first Windows phone available in the United States, the Lumia 710. The smartphone will not be available for holiday shoppers; it goes on sale Jan. 11 for $50 with a contract.
The Lumia launch is a high-stakes event for all three of the companies involved: T-Mobile USA, Nokia and Microsoft. T-Mobile USA looks increasingly likely to continue operating as a unit of Deutsche Telekom for the foreseeable future, with Washington putting the brakes on its agreement to be acquired by AT&T. During the past several months, Deutsche Telekom has limited its investment in its U.S. subsidiary, but a unique product could give the German company a reason to increase its focus on T-Mobile USA.
For Nokia, Lumia is its chance to prove that it will be a serious competitor in the smartphone market. Nokia still sells more mobile phones than any other company, but in the exploding market for smartphones the Finnish company has been left behind by Apple and Samsung. Nokia spent $3.7 billion on handset research and development last year, twice as much as Apple spent on all R&D. But it remains to be seen whether Lumia or future Nokia smartphones will make that effort pay.
Software giant Microsoft has a history of being late to the party and making a grand entrance. Internet Explorer eclipsed Netscape in the 1990s, and before that Windows was a second mover to Apple’s Macintosh operating system. Even though the Windows 7 operating system currently has less than 2% of the U.S. smartphone market, Microsoft has yet to flex its significant marketing muscle for the product in the U.S.
The Lumia 710 is a 4.4-ounce phone with a 3.7 inch display, powered by a single-core 1400 MHz Snapdragon processor made by Qualcomm. The phone is Nokia’s lower-end Lumia; the Lumia 800 is the higher-end model. Both phones have been on sale in Europe for several months.
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