Only Software and 3 New Windows Phone OEMs Today, No Handsets

Today, during an event set to take place in New York City, Redmond-based software giant Microsoft is expected to unveil to the world the next flavor of its Windows Phone mobile operating system.

The company announced plans to make this move a while ago, during the MIX11 conference, and has just confirmed that today we'll have a glimpse at the future of Windows Phone.

“We’re hosting a little press conference on Tuesday, May 24th in New York City to talk about the future of Windows Phone. Some of you might have heard,” Michael Stroh notes on the company's blog.

The event would kick off at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, and Microsoft plans on live streaming it.

While all of these details were already known, still shrouded in mystery remains info on what exactly would be unveiled today.

Some of the latest rumors on the matter claim that, among other details, Microsoft also plans on unveiling a number of three new OEM partners for Windows Phone.

Since Nokia was already unveiled as a partner, the Finnish handset vendor might not be included on this short list, but names like Acer, or Chinese manufacturers ZTE or Huawei, or even the Japanese-Swedish joint-venture Sony Ericsson might make an appearance there.

Unfortunately, it seems that only the name of these new partners would be announced, and that no mobile phones would be brought to the spotlight.

Some suggested that Microsoft would plan on announcing the new range of Windows Phones today, but others claim that the event would be only software focused.

In other words, only the new features to be included with the next flavor of the platform, called Mango, would be unveiled today. Last we've heard, there would be plenty of those to keep us busy for a while.

Of course, the fact that no new smartphone would make an official appearance would be disappointing, but we can at least hope that Microsoft would announce more on when would these devices be unveiled to the world.

Most probably, October would be the lucky month once again, just as the software giant accustomed us for the past few years.

With over 500 new features included into the mix, and a wider range of mobile phone makers to support it, Mango is shaping up as Windows Phone 8 more than 7.5, that's for sure, though we should wait for Microsoft to unveil a specific name for it before making presumptions.