14 DAY TRIAL // Redmond-based software giant Microsoft is gearing up for bringing to the market the next version of its Windows Phone mobile operating system, called Mango, and some more info on the company's plans for the OS emerged.
In a recent interview with NieuweMobiel, Maarten Sonneveld, Mobile Communications Business Group Lead, Microsoft Netherlands, unveiled that the new platform release is expected to hit shelves in mid-October.
Mango was said to arrive in early fall, at least this is what Microsoft said earlier this week, when unveiling details on the release.
However, while the software giant was referring to the platform, Sonneveld was talking about the handsets, which might arrive later than the OS itself.
Existing Windows Phone devices could receive updates to Mango before the new devices running under it would become available for purchase, WMPoweruser suggests.
In the Netherlands, the next Windows Phone release should arrive with full support for Dutch, including menus, software input and voice recognition, it seems.
This comes as great news for users, since Microsoft might include similar features for other countries as well.
Sonneveld also explained that Nokia would be bringing cheap handsets to the Windows Phone ecosystem, and that ZTE would also plan on making a similar move.
This way, the platform would become more accessible to a wider range of users, in more markets than before.
One other important aspect that Sonneveld unveiled was related to the hardware inside future Windows Phone-based devices.
Apparently, dual-core application processors are a go, and they should arrive in handsets in the not-too-distant future, though none is expected for this year.
For the time being, however, handset vendors need to come up with phones that are in accordance with the much-discussed Windows Phone chassis. But Microsoft might offer manufacturers more freedom in choosing the hardware on which to load the Windows Phone platform in the future.
So far nothing it known precisely on what hardware capabilities the next Windows Phones would include, and we should wait for the first devices running under Mango to hit shelves, to learn more on them.