Windows Phone 7 Shows New Face at TechEd 2010

Redmond-based software giant is hard at work with the development of its newest mobile operating system flavor, Windows Phone 7, and the latest announcements regarding the distribution of applications via the Windows Phone Marketplace are a proof of that. Further confirmation comes from a series of screenshots that emerged into the wild not too long ago, offering a glimpse at the latest visual changes brought to the OS, as well as from a video presenting the manner in which the platform can handle cloud computing.

The new face of Windows Phone 7 was spotted at the TechEd North America 2010 conference. The newer build of the OS is different from what we had the chance to see at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona, as well as from the platform brought on stage at Microsoft's MIX conference. According to a recent post on istartedsomething, the Windows Phone 7 build on display at TechEd 2010 seemed more complete and responsive than previous ones, which suggests that things are getting closer and closer to the public release.

“The most obvious thing you’ll notice is a more compact lock screen that features much smaller text for the time and date, presumably to address the issue some people raised over the unnecessary clipping of the date,” the said post states. Those who would like to take a look at the shots available with the said Windows Phone 7 build should go here. In addition to these photos, one can have a look at the video embedded below (courtesy of WMExperts), with provides some more info on the platform flavor that was demoed at the conference.

The presentation shows a focus on cloud computing and enterprise, with Sharepoint, Office, Excel and Outlook being present in the below video. According to the news site, the new interface indeed seems smoother than previously demonstrated ones, and those animations and transitions are welcome. Microsoft says that Windows Phone 7 is suited for business users too and the presentation is meant to show exactly that. There are still some functionalities that are missing from the equation, and full-editing of documents is not possible, but things are getting as close as possible to the real deal.