Lumia 900 to cost $99.99 on AT&T

We know that Microsoft and Nokia have a steep hill to climb with their smartphone collaboration. The Lumia 900 looks like a great handset, but that’s no guarantee that it will gain traction with customers (remember that the Nexus One, an iconic Android masterpiece, was labelled as a dud in terms of sales). The MicroNokia alliance needs a homerun with the 900, and a leaked roadmap tells us that the companies have taken their vitamins and are swinging for the fence with their first high-end US phone.

A leaked AT&T roadmap lists the Lumia 900 as debuting in March with a two-year-contract price of $99.99. This is not only surprising (we would have guessed $199.99), but it gives Windows Phone a huge shot of adrenaline.

You can make the greatest product that the world has ever seen, but if it’s overpriced, customers might not give it a second look. Do you think the iPad would be as successful as it is if Apple had opted for a $900 starting price? Would the iPhone have gained mass adoption if it kept its 2007 debut cost of $499 on contract?

The Lumia 900′s $100 pricing is probably the smartest decision that Microsoft and Nokia have made in years. It instantly makes Verizon’s $300 LTE phones look utterly ridiculous. It will undercut the market-leadingiPhone 4S and match the price of the (by the time the Lumia releases) 20-month-old iPhone 4. When combined with an aggressive promotional campaign, the sleek Lumia 900 has a great chance to make the smartphone market a three-horse-race. Is it a sure thing? Of course not. Customers could still dismiss the phone and the platform; but it always helps your odds to make price a killer spec.

Introduced at CES 2012, the handset sports an 8MP camera, a 1.4GHz processor, and will ride on AT&T’s speedy LTE network. It will run Microsoft’s latest version of its operating system, Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. The roadmap has it launching on March 18.

via BGR