Windows Phone 7 in October, Microsoft COO Says

Officially, the first Windows Phone 7 devices won't land on the market before October is here. Although previous rumors suggested that we might be able to see such mobile phones available on shelves as soon as September, Redmond-based software giant Microsoft tends to disagree. The company has recently announced that the first such handsets would be put on sale in October, one year after the official release of Windows Mobile 6.5.

Kevin Turner, Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer, is the one who stated loud and clear that the new mobile operating system from the company won't be seen on devices on the market before the fourth quarter of the ongoing year arrives. Moreover, he made it clear that October is the month during which Windows Phone 7 handsets would be launched on the European market, and that the first such devices are expected to arrive in the United Sates only in November. More info on this can be found in the video below (via Engadget).

Some enthusiasts might indeed be disappointed that Windows Phone 7 devices won't arrive sooner, but this was the release window that most of us were expecting for, that's for sure. Even so, some of the latest rumors on this suggested that South Korean mobile phone maker LG Electronics might deliver its first Windows Phone 7 device in September, followed by a series of other handsets before the end of the ongoing year.

Microsoft's new mobile operating system is expected to mark a great shift from the company's previous approach towards the smartphone market. For what it's worth, enthusiasts would certainly welcome the OS as soon as it lands on shelves, even if some might argue that Microsoft already lost the fight in this space. The new platform comes with a series of hardware requirements that set the bar pretty high, and the combination between these hardware specs and the new visual appearance of the OS might indeed prove to be a winner.