A wider number of people can give it a try

Jul 19, 2010 06:03 GMT  ·  By

On Sunday, Redmond-based software giant Microsoft has announced that its upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system is now one step closer to become available on the first mobile phones on the market. According to the company, the platform reached a new milestone, called technical preview. What that means is that a wide community around the world can take the operating system for a spin, so as to provide the company with their impressions on how things work.

“I’m very excited to share with this blog community, that our Windows Phone engineering team has hit a very meaningful milestone; one that we’re calling technical preview. We are certainly not done yet – but the craftsmen (and women) of our team have signed off that our software is now ready for the hands-on everyday use of a broad set of consumers around the world – and we’re looking forward to their feedback in the coming weeks, so that we can finish the best Windows Phone release ever together,” Terry Myerson, CVP, Windows Phone Engineering, notes in a recent blog post.

Prior to achieving this milestone, the platform was being heavily tested in Microsoft's labs. According to Myerson, over 1,000 people had Windows Phone 7 devices in their hands for everyday use, while over 10,000 mobile phones were being tested in the company's labs. Usability, battery life, or network connectivity are only some of the aspects the development team took into consideration for testing.

“Starting today, thousands of prototype phones from Asus, LG and Samsung are making their way into the hands of developers over the next few weeks. Combine that with the beta release of the Windows Phone developer tools, and I can’t wait to see how our developer partners take advantage of our new approach to smart design and integrated mobile experiences. I’m personally working on a flash card app for my daughter, and am consistently amazed by the ease with which Silverlight and Visual Studio make WP7 apps possible,” Myerson continues.

While things are indeed moving fast towards the final release, a long road still lies ahead. End users, device manufacturers, application developers and carriers alike have showed increased interest in the upcoming operating system. It seems that Windows Phone 7 is indeed shaping up as intended, and that it should bring the long waited change in Microsoft's approach towards the mobile space.