Last week, some of the owners of Windows Phone 7-based smartphones started receiving their automatic download to get the big 7.5, or Mango, update from their wireless carriers. This week, Microsoft gave an update on the Mango release on the official Windows Phone blog site. According to Microsoft's Eric Hautala, "Within the first hours of making it available, we saw successful updates in every country, on every carrier, and for nearly every Windows Phone model." He added that the update went so well in its first week that Microsoft has now decided " ... to open the spigot ahead of schedule, and make Windows Phone 7.5 available to 50 percent of eligible customers ... "
If you are wondering why Microsoft hasn't gone ahead and made the Mango update available for all Windows Phone 7 phones, Hautala says, "Because we’re still collecting and analyzing installation data from our smaller operators, and need to watch it little bit longer to make sure everything is OK." He also states that the update process is totally random and is not based on location, the model of the smartphone, or the wireless carrier. He says, "Random sampling is an important engineering technique to accurately measure quality and pinpoint issues early. In some cases, this can have interesting consequences: A family, for example, can have identical Windows Phones, yet only one phone might get an update notification."
If you have a Windows Phone 7-based smartphone but don't want to wait until Microsoft or your wireless carrier sends out the automatic update to 7.5, we have previously reported on a way you might be able to get the Mango update right now.
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