At an MSDN seminar called “The Next Generation of Development”, held in Hong Kong today by Microsoft, the company confirmed some previously rumoured details about the Windows Phone 7 “Tango” update. As we reported earlier, Tango will in fact be a minor update.
The aim for Tango is to make Windows Phone 7 more accessible in the Asian markets such as China and India, and will be used on lower-end, cheaper devices developed by companies such as Nokia and ZTE. It will also bring improved Bing services to these companies that Microsoft has overlooked as they focussed on the European and North American markets.
It is unclear at this stage whether Tango will specifically be reserved for developing countries and lower-end devices, or whether this will be just part of the next update that will eventually also be loaded onto Western devices. At this stage it looks like the former, and as a minor update it’s not really needed on high-end handsets that already have full Bing services.
Microsoft also confirmed at the event that the next major version of Windows Phone is codenamed “Apollo” – currently rumoured to be Windows Phone 8 with a rough release date of 2012 (along with Windows 8). In the meantime, Microsoft is about to release the WP7 “Mango” update to the public, with Mango app submissions starting and several Mango devices reported to be launching soon.