Maybe Nokia wants to convince T-Mobile that the N900 is going to be for them what the iPhone was/is for AT&T?

Most of us assume that the N900 is ready for mass use, however Nokia may not think the same, so they would prefer a careful and limited launch, to "test their wings" and create a user core.

That user core would be a nice base for a Harmattan release. This, plus the experience from the N900 release plus the more developed network T-Mobile should have by then would be the ideal scenario for a Harmattan device mass deployment, perhaps at price zero with subsidy, like the N97 in Europe.

Remember Nokia thinks long term and their win strategy is based in sheer device numbers.

One more thing: even if there is no big US release, the N900 has already fulfilled something very important: it shut up the doomsayers and Nokia haters.

Now no one can deny that Nokia is in the cutting edge. That buys them some time to properly develop and release the next version of Symbian, and Harmattan too.

One last edit: That is probably why the N900 got so little time in Nokia World: the N900 speaks for itself, while they have to convince their partners that Symbian, despite being under so much fire recently, is still valuable and important.