Windows Phone 7 development reached the most important milestone yesterday, with hitting the Windows Phone 7 release to manufacturing (RTM) status !

“While the final integration of Windows Phone 7 with our partners’ hardware, software, and networks is underway, the work of our internal engineering team is largely complete.”

Terry Myerson, Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Engineering, published the  article “Windows Phone 7 – Released To Manufacturing” on the Windows Phone Blog.

“Windows Phone 7 is the most thoroughly tested mobile platform Microsoft has ever released.  We had nearly ten thousand devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes.  We’ve had thousands of independent software vendors and early adopters testing our software and giving us great feedback.”

Good to hear that Windows Phone 7 has a stable and solid foundation, a basis to build and extend upon !

Windows Phone 7 – The story continues

Windows Phone 7 (series at that point in time) was first presented to the public during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year. The focus of this first chapter in the Windows Phone 7 story was mainly on the new graphical userinterface and the hubs.

Microsoft outlined the second chapter of the Windows Phone 7 story at the MIX 2010 conference, where the more technical details were filled in. I would like to recommend the article “Videos of MIX10 Windows Phone sessions” by Charlie Kindel on the Windows Phone Developer Blog.

The Windows Phone 7 Technical Preview is the third chapter in the Windows Phone 7 story, since developers are now able to test the applications they have been building not just in the emulator, but on real prototype devices.

In addition the first wave of 50 Xbox LIVE games is recently announced at Gamescom 2010 in Cologne. It showed the progress and further shaping of the Xbox LIVE experience, as well as some really cool games for Windows Phone. I’m not a gamer, but the achievements and the multiplayer possibilities are cool.

Two local events shaped my insights in Windows Phone 7 as well. First Charlie Kindel  provided me with a “private” Windows Phone 7 demo @DevDays 2010, on the well known Asus prototype. Second I had some hands-on time with the LG Panther prototype about a month ago during the Windows Phone Get Together Event.

Overall conclusions and wrap-up

Reaching the RTM milestone for Windows Phone 7 is an important step that brings us closer to seeing real devices in stores later this year.

Terry Myerson, Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Engineering furthermore concludes:

“This has been one of the most incredible product development efforts I’ve ever been a part of. Today’s milestone is exciting not just because of what we’ll deliver to customers later this year, but how it sets us up for success over the long term in the mobile space.”

I concluded that “the LG Panther and Windows Phone 7 felt snappy, responsive and showed fluid motions.”. However there is also some lacking functionality and hopefully end-users can see these in a respectable time frame. I mean the typical development cycles of a year are simply too long, certainly if you compare it with the more incremental updates of other mobile operating systems.

Personally I’m excited and looking forward to getting my hands on a Windows Phone 7 device, final software and final hardware to really have a deeper look at the capabilities of this new mobile operating system from Microsoft.