LAST week, I was lucky enough to be invited, along with the world’s media and around 5,000 other guests, to the official launch of Nokia’s new range of Windows 7 mobile phones.

It’s a move which sees the company turning its impressive machine back toward the smartphone with the launch of a product that well and truly puts Nokia back in contention in this market.

To put Nokia’s latest move into perspective we need to cast our minds back a little to the days before the iPhone.

Back then Nokia had a reputation for being one of the most innovative brands in the world. It was cool to have a Nokia ... they were desirable and at the same time reliable. I bet every mobile user over 25 will have owned a Nokia at some stage.

In 2007, the company supplied 38% of all of the world’s smartphones but by the start of 2010 its share had slumped to just 4% of sales in this crucial sector. Nokia being caught and overtaken by the likes of Blackberry, Apple, HTC and Samsung, has been one of the most remarkable stories in business, never mind technology.

To go from such a position of strength took some really quantum changes, but the long and short of it is that Nokia got caught flat-footed by the iOS operating systems and latterly Android. Missed opportunities left Nokia smartphones looking like a dad at a school disco – hopelessly old and trying way too hard.

Some predicted that Nokia would wither and die. But these people missed the obvious – smartphones are very cool, but if you sell 12 basic voice phones per second you still have something to build from.

So what’s a CEO to do? How about a deal with Microsoft – admit you make the best hardware in the world, but need someone who perhaps has a foot in software.

Engineer your business to get behind an operating system that makes your phone an extension of your desktop. Then really immerse everything in getting the user experience right, and do it all in a staggering eight months.

So last week I saw the new Lumia 800, played with it, dropped it – sorry guys – and it’s a pretty impressive thing. It’s like the child of all that is good from Nokia and from Microsoft.

The Windows 7 platform is on other hardware – HTC and Samsung have already released devices – but this machine is the best looking and best built I have yet seen.

It is the most interactive mobile experience and it runs Office properly. This product is not out of place at the school disco – it is the coolest kid there. Welcome back Nokia.

:: Mark Lavender is sales director of Sunderland-based telecoms firm CCS Mobile