Windows Phone 7.1 Mango Unveiled

Microsoft Officially Announces Windows Phone 7.1 Mango With 500 New Features

Today at Microsoft’s Windows Phone VIP Reception, president of mobile communications Andy Lees and senior Windows Phone product manager Derek Snyder gave us a quick rundown of what to expect out of the newest version of the Windows Phone platform, WP7.1 or “Mango.”
Though he didn’t have time to cover all 500 new features, the focus will certainly center around communication, applications, and the way we use mobile internet. Along with the current service offerings in People Hub such as Facebook, Hotmail, and Gmail, Microsoft has gone ahead and added LinkedIn and Twitter.
Mango will also bring with it a Groups feature, allowing multiple people to communicate across a multiple platforms, while simultaneously integrating those people’s profiles, pictures, and a group history of all events and communication shared. Instead of only being able to communicate with groups that all share the same hardware maker, Mango employs Windows Live Messenger and Facebook Chat to keep you connected with friends, including those with other phones.

Another communication upgrade is an adjustment to call history, which integrates voicemail, missed calls, text messages, and any calendar events with regards to that particular contact. Speech-to-text will also offer a completely hands-free experience for texting, which was definitely impressive in the demo.
Mango also upgrades all the different Windows Phone Hubs, most significantly Pictures, Office, and Xbox Live. Mango offers what Microsoft has dubbed people-centric pictures, which employs facial recognition software to quickly tag and share with friends straight from the Pictures app.
The Office experience has also undergone a bit of a revamp. Mango will support Office 365 along with SkyDrive (which offers users 25GB of free storage). Office in Mango brings just about identical functionality to mobile, allowing users to highlight and arrange Excel cells or make changes to a Word document and save without worrying about any garbled information. Xbox Live Hub basically brings all of your gaming app experiences into one place in Mango, offering the friends scores, integrating a cute little avatar, and offering a quick-resume experience during multitasking.
Finally, Mango will include and use Internet Explorer 9, which uses hardware acceleration and supports HTML5 to deliver a quick experience. When tested against the iPhone 4, the BlackBerry Torch, and the Samsung Droid Charge, the Windows Phone running Mango blew the other browsers out of the water, delivering 27 frames per second compared to BlackBerry’s 4 fps and Android’s 10 fps. The iPhone 4 couldn’t get started.

Bing is also very deeply integrated into the browsing experience. An information search will bring up a Quick Card for a particular movie, event, place, business. Quick Cards offer all the possible information you could want including upcoming events, or other nearby restaurants in the neighborhood. Speaking of neighborhood, Mango also offers a feature called Local Scout, which organizes places by category for each individual neighborhood. Also, if you’ve enjoyed Bing Voice, Mango will be a real treat as Windows Phone 7.1 will bring with it Bing Vision. With Bing Vision, you can simply snap a picture of a QR code, a 2D bar code, or even a book cover to bring up a Quick Card for that product.
Mango will hit users in the Fall, according to Mr. Lees, but developers can get their hands on the SDK now.

Windows 8 Confirmed by Microsoft

Microsoft's Ballmer says next-gen Windows systems due in 2012.

Finally, Microsoft has now confirmed the existence of a “Windows 8” OS as CEO Steve Ballmer (pictured) announced it during the company’s developer forum held in Japan.
Although Ballmer did not dish out the dirt about the upcoming OS, he did indicate that the “next generation of Windows systems” will be released net year. He also teased that “there’s a whole lot more coming,” which would include “slates, tablets, PCs, (and) a variety of form factors.”
ZDNet noted the distinction between “slates” and “tablets” as two separate form factors, which could be interesting unless Ballmer used two terms pertaining to one device. Another interesting insight is that he did not use the name “Windows 8″ regarding the next-gen Windows systems. Perhaps we will hear more about it in the coming days, particularly during the D9 conference where Microsoft’s Windows chief, Steven Sinofski, would appear.

Windows Phone 7 Launch Scheduled for Oct. 11

Microsoft will officially unveil Windows Mobile 7 in the high-profile events in New York on Oct. 11. Microsoft hopes Windows Mobile 7, the user of Android and to win iPhone.

Microsoft launches Windows Mobile 7 in the high-profile events in New York on Oct. 11. One of the confirmed media Invitation sent AT & T obligations as a leading carrier for the upcoming smartphone platform, a separate Microsoft site suggests that it is representative of the T-Mobile also be present.

Opening event will begin with a press conference this morning hosted Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT & T Mobility and Consumer Markets. After that, Microsoft will host "device window" with AT & T smartphones with Windows Mobile 7

Toward evening, Microsoft is "Open House" event, where many of its future products, such as Xbox and Windows Mobile 7 Kinect display host.

During the day, invite the media only mentions AT & T, a page on its corporate web Microsoft, lists of sites as an agenda item: "T-Mobile reps now shows its part and its services you will." T-Mobile reportedly preparing smartphone on Windows Mobile HTC HD7 7 for the U.S. version.

Microsoft previously confirmed that Windows Mobile 7 will be a GSM-based mobile networks such as AT & T first, before going on CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) carriers, including Verizon is available in the first half of 2011. In the 11-meter events in October will AT & T executives are likely timing of the actual device, although earlier reports suggested early November the frame.

"In the development of Windows Mobile 7, we put high quality customer experience, above all," a Microsoft representative wrote in a Sept. 17 letter to eWEEK. "In line with this objective, Microsoft has to provide the GSM version of the first attention in the world, and then a large versions of CDMA in the first half of 2011."

In September, Microsoft released the final version of its Windows Mobile Developer Tools, which it hopes to force the developers of applications for the platform design. Twitter, Netflix, OpenTabe, Flixster and Travelocity are some of the highest profile companies have plans, applications available for Windows Mobile 7 on its release.

Microsoft will spend nearly half a billion dollars in the marketing of Windows Mobile 7 after the initial deployment of the German Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg. "It does make or break for them. You must do everything to take to stay in the game," he told the blog TechCrunch on August 26. "You do not have to share with Android and Apple take as long as they can to attract enough consumers to switch to the phone.

Nevertheless, in fierce competition with Google Android devices and iPhone Apple as a whole, which is Microsoft's smartphone market share has driven in the past few quarters is charged, though the company a franchise used to be a convenient part of the market, thanks primarily a business decision, an increase of the other platforms, see the corresponding dip in user Microsoft.