Nokia may be paying up to $25 million to make the Nokia Lumia 900 the Official AT&T Company Use phone for retail staff

Recently we heard that retail staff were already using Nokia Lumia 900s, and now we hear from WPCentral that this may not just be a co-incidence, but part of a strong push by Nokia to get AT&T staff familiar with the new Windows Phone flagship.

Apparently in return for a $25 million payment AT&T has designated the Nokia Lumia 900 for ‘Company Use’ meaning all Front Seller employees are eligible to receive the phone at no cost.  In return employees have to turn in their current ‘Company Use’ phones, namely the iPhone and certain Android devices. In employees refuse the deal they can still use another phone, but this will only be available at a discount, not free.

Nokia is expecting an uptake of 80% for the deal, which should help familiarise the majority of staff with the Windows Phone 7 OS.

Also of note is that this move is not intended too boost Windows Phone in general. According to WPCentral AT&T is end of Life-ing (EOL) the other two high end Windows Phones on AT&T, the HTC Titan and Samsung Focus S, leaving the HTC Titan II as the only other high end Windows Phone on the network.

Who gets a feeling Windows Phone will soon become as synonymous with Nokia as Symbian has?