There;s been a whole lot of new (and at times conflicting/confusing) specifics shared this week about Microsoft;s Windows Phone seven platform in the Microsoft Blend ten conference.Microsoft officials admitted the phone crew made a conscious choice to eliminate cut-and-paste features through the preliminary Windows Phone 7 platform. (They won;t say if or maybe no matter if Microsoft might possibly add cut-and-paste to the phone platform, despite the truth that Windows Cellular presently has that capacity.) This just in: Microsoft;s most recent statement around the lack of cut-and-paste: “We’re always listening to feedback and will continue to improve our feature set over time based on what we hear.” (So I;ll take that as a maybe it;s coming sometime, but not with the preliminary version….)The staff also conceded that multitasking is going to be a mixed bag on Windows Telephone 7 devices (with Microsoft apps/experiences having the ability but third-party apps not so).Most tellingly, Microsoft execs admitted that Windows Telephone 7 devices; first target audience is consumers,
Cheap Microsoft Office 2010, not business users. (I guess the “life maximizers” Microsoft sees as the buyers for these phones aren;t expected to do a entire great deal of work on their WP7 phones.) As my blogging colleague Larry Dignan noted yesterday, Microsoft;s iPhone envy might have gotten the best of the company.A picture is worth a thousand words. This slide from Windows Telephone seven group member Charlie Kindel;s talk at Combine — which shows all of the various elements of Microsoft;s Windows 7 telephone app platform in architectural diagram form — provides a quick overview of what the Softies are telling developers and designers this week about the company;s next-gen mobile platform. (Click on the slide below to enlarge.)Microsoft reiterated this week that Silverlight is the primary vehicle for writing Windows Telephone 7 applications and some games. XNA Game Studio is for developers who want to build highly interactive and/or 3D games.Microsoft isn;t sharing anything about what;s happening with its My Phone synchronization service that it introduced last year for Windows Cellular users,
Microsoft Office Professional Plus, but the Softies are saying there will be some cloud services available (and still unknown prices) to Windows Phone 7 users,
Office Home And Business 2010 Key, including notification, app deployment, social and Xbox Live gaming. There will be additional “portal services” available to Windows Telephone seven users,
Office 2010 Professional Key, as properly — everything from update management, to billing, to app purchasing (which will be handled, for now, at least,
Windows 7 Starter Product Key, exclusively through the Windows Phone Marketplace.I;m still curious as to when and no matter if Microsoft will flesh out the Windows Telephone seven platform to make it more attractive to enterprise customers. What else are you still wondering about, regarding Microsoft;s next steps with cellular?