Microsoft could be readying its Windows Phone 7 operating system for launch next month. The company said it would, but has not made public the exact date. Reports are now hitting the web plumping for October 11.
Most of the reports appear to trace back to the Pocket Lint website which claimed to have “a man on the inside of a large electronics firm” who said, “I’m told WP7 will be announced officially in early October. The exact date will have to come from Microsoft.”
Evidently better-informed sources set October 11 as the actual date and confirmed to the website that a launch party will be held in New York.
Perhaps there will be a launch in the US to take the wraps off Windows Phone 7 and make a simultaneous availability announcement for Europe – or perhaps Microsoft has decided not to upset its home market by launching abroad.
It is expected that Asus, Dell, HTC, LG and Samsung will be present to unveil their hardware implementations of Phone 7. HTC has a phone launch set for next Wednesday but has not specified the operating system. Maybe this could be the European launch Turner mentioned.
Microsoft will also have to do something to make people believe that Phone 7 will offer more than cut-down Microsoft applications. The company has lost ground, even CEO Steve Ballmer said it had skipped a generation of phones. App support appears to be everything but Windows Phone, the Microsoft app store only boasts hundreds of apps, whereas Android and iPhone have hundreds of thousands.
From launch, whenever that may be, Microsoft has a guaranteed 90,000 user base because all of its employees worldwide will be provided with a new phone. In our own survey, we had two votes from European readers wanting to buy from Microsoft so make that 90,002.
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I've been using a developer device for a couple of day's and even in this state i rocks. WinPhone7 will blow the competition way, i've been showing it rond and a lot of people are interested.
If it launches 'anytime within Oct'2010' Google will have squandered one of the biggest lead-times in a technology field in living memory! Android only passed the 'old-hat' Windows Mobile v6 in the marketplace in May'2010. With their inability to up the number of app developer countries in Google's Android Market from the current '7 countries only policy' since September 2009 - yes that's 12 months with 'no' movement on the seller-country front at all - they have needlessly lost a huge amount of developer/publisher 'mind-share' around the world, which Microsoft is set to pick up some large part thereof. I've been talking to developers who have "not been near Microsoft for 10+ years", who now see them as the more developer/publisher-friendlier company of the two, and who are now developing Windows phone 7 apps.
The only thing I've seen like it, is a parallel in the political sphere in Australia, where the Labor Party had a huge major and ran the only country in the developed world to escape recession - but after a deadlocked recent vote, less then 3 years after being elected and popular, they only just gained government after 17 days of wrangling, with the help of 4 Independents. They too made mind-numbingly stupid and inexplicable decisions.
I hope you are correct Steve and this is the kick in the pants which gets things moving. Unless, as the speculation surrounding the motives for not rolling out paid apps globally goes, Google would prefer everyone to write free apps funded by ads.