Microsoft announced details regarding Windows Phone 7 Series’ application store, software development kit and user interface.
The Silverlight and XNA programming environments will play major roles for third-party software developers. Microsoft previewed the software toolkits at its MIX developer conference this morning.
Windows Phone 7 Series is Microsoft’s reboot of its mobile platform previously named Windows Mobile. Though Windows Mobile established an early lead as the smartphone operating system of choice, the platform last year suffered significant losses in market share in the mobile OS space, while Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android platform continued to see healthy growth.
With Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft is attempting to regain its mobile groove by offering a brand new user interface that integrates applications and multimedia into “Hubs†(i.e., software experiences organized into main categories) as well as a tidier platform for third-party developers to create and serve apps.
