T-Mobile to Unveil Nokia Windows Phone Next Week

T-Mobile is expected to introduce Nokia's first Windows phone at a special event on December 14, kicking off the companies' comeback campaigns.

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Nokia Lumia 710

The invitation to the secretive New York City event said, "T-Mobile and Nokia have something exciting in the works."

Nokia, Microsoft, and T-Mobile are all underdogs in the U.S. smartphone market, and a joint venture between the three companies aims to boost sales and build a strong consumer base for the trio.

Nokia is the world's top producer of feature phones, but has been slow to gain ground in the smartphone sector. The company recently announced plans to target first-time smartphone buyers in the U.S., and its partnership with software giant Microsoft Windows is expected to draw users accustomed to the Windows format on their PC's.

Nokia's first Windows phone, the Lumia 800, is flying off the shelves in the U.K., offering proof its strategy is working, and signaling good news for the U.S. launch.

The Windows smartphone platform failed to spark much interest from preoccupied carriers focused on the rapid growth of Apple's iOS and Google's Android phones. A recent study by the NPD group, however, found nearly half of smartphone users in the U.S. would consider switching to a Windows operating system, hinting at a solid market for Windows-based smartphones.

Last week Microsoft released a downloadable teaser demo of its Mango 7.5 smartphone software for Android users, aimed to boost consumer excitement for its Windows platform.

A successful launch of the much-hyped Nokia Lumia phones may also help T-Mobile. The company remains the only major U.S. carrier that does not offer the iPhone, since the device doesn't support the carrier's 1700-MHz frequency band. This exclusion isn't helping T-Mobile move up from its fourth place designation in the U.S. behind Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint, respectively.

If Windows phones garner a loyal following and T-Mobile is in at the ground floor, the carrier's resulting momentum may close ground on its competitors.

Though the company has not confirmed Lumia phone will appear in the U.S., early speculation points to the Nokia Lumia 710, a mid-market device that offers easy grouping of contacts and the classic tiled Microsoft Windows interface.

Three companies are relying on Nokia's Lumia phones to excite customers and stake out some territory in the competitive smartphone market, with the Windows name powerful enough to unite them in a winning strategy.