Microsoft executives took to the stage at the company's MIX10 event this morning in Las Vegas to reveal details of the software development process for its Windows Phone 7 (left), scheduled to be available on phones by this year's holiday season. A 9 a.m. keynote by Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president, .NET Developer Platform, and Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president, Windows Phone Program Management, provided what the company billed as "the first deep dive into Windows Phone 7 series application development."

As previously announced, the primary development tools for Windows Phone 7 are to be Microsoft's Silverlight and XNA. (Touted as "industry-leading software, services, resources, and communities," XNA is a rather sprawling acronym -- "X" stands for "A cross section of software tools and technologies for Windows and Xbox 360, "N" stands for "Next-gen," and "A" stands for "Architecture.")

"As the browser, server, Web and devices evolve, a focus on delivering consistently great user experiences has become paramount," Guthrie (right) said. "By extending our familiar platform technologies and tools to phones, Microsoft is delivering the premier application development experience across a variety of devices and form factors."

Microsoft says it is making a single downloadable package available that includes the following:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone
• Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series add-in for use with Visual Studio 2010 RC
• XNA Game Studio 4.0
• a Windows Phone 7 Series Emulator for application testing
• A Silverlight 4 RC
• A CTP of Expression Blend for Windows Phone

According to Microsoft, the Windows Phone 7 Series Emulator will give users of Windows 7 or Windows Vista PCs the ability to test Windows Phone 7 on their desktop computers, though it won't perform as fast in the emulation as on an actual phone. Those whose PCs have multi-touch screens will be able to operate the operating system using their fingers, the company adds.

Microsoft's Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone
(Click to enlarge)

The technologies listed above will permit creation of "visually stunning and immersive applications and games -- one of the industrys most profitable mobile application categories -- while taking advantage of device-specific capabilities," the company said in a statement.

Developers will be able to take advantage of the following features, Microsoft added:

• Accelerometer, an intuitive control that responds to motion
• A Microsoft Location Service to provide developers with a single point of reference to acquire location information
• Microsoft Notification Service for pushing information to the phone, regardless of whether or not an application is running
• Hardware-accelerated video with digital rights management (DRM)
• Internet Information Services Smooth Streaming for the industrys highest quality content viewing experience
• Multitouch
• Camera and microphone support

In the keynote and demonstrations that followed, Microsoft reiterated that Windows Phone 7 development has been simplified by adoption of a standard hardware platform. Initial phones will all have 800 x 480 pixel capacitive touchscreens, with 480 x 320 devices coming later. They'll also all have the same chipset (Qualcomm's Snapdragon, we believe), cameras, and microphones, the company added.

XNA Game Studio version 4.0 will allow development of games that will work not only on Windows Phone 7, but also on Windows PCs and the Xbox 360. Existing APIs for such things as multitouch and the Zune media client are maintained, and developers will be able to adapt games built on previous versions of XNA Game Studio without extensive re-coding, the company promises.

Sample Windows Phone 7 Games: The Harvest by LumaArcade (top) andBattle Punks by Garage Games/Gravity Bear
Source: Microsoft

Microsoft also announced a downloadable release candidate (RC) for Silverlight 4, building on the beta version released at its Professional Developers Conference in November 2009. The Silverlight 4 RC provides powerful media and enterprise application and media capabilities, out-of-browser flexibility and world-class tools support, enabling "robust application development and rich interactive experiences," the company says.

Additionally unveiled was a beta of Expression Blend 4, a design and development workflow tool. The new version adds a feature called path layout, enabling users to build and animate user interfaces visually, without the need to write code. The Expression Blend 4 Beta also adds support for Silverlight 4, .NET Framework 4 and Visual Studio 2010, according to the company.

Windows Phone Marketplace

As expected, Microsoft confirmed that it will offer an online Marketplace for Windows Phone 7, "featuring a panoramic design and active merchandising to increase the discoverability of games and applications. The Marketplace will deliver a 70 percent revenue share to developers, support mobile operator billing and advertising-funded applications, and allow one-time credit card purchases, the company says. The Marketplace will also enable customers to try applications before buying them and allow developers to cross-promote their applications through deep linking, Microsoft added.

Microsoft released an initial list of companies that will be creating games or other applications for Windows Phone 7. They include: The Associated Press, Archetype International Inc., AWS Convergence Technologies WeatherBug, Citrix Systems Inc., Clarity Consulting Inc., Cypress Consulting, EA Mobile, Fandango Inc., Foursquare Labs Inc., frog design inc., Glu Mobile Inc., Graphic.ly, Hudson Entertainment Inc., IdentityMine Inc., IMDb.com Inc., Larva Labs, Match.com LLC, Matchbox Mobile Ltd., Microsoft Game Studios, Namco Networks America Inc., Oberon Media Inc., Pageonce Inc., Pandora Media Inc., Photobucket Inc., PopCap Games Inc., Seesmic, Shazam Entertainment Ltd., Sling Media, SPB Software Inc., stimulant, TeleCommunications Systems Inc., Touchality LLC and Vertigo Software Inc.

In another development, Adobe confirmed last week that Flash is indeed on its way to Windows Phone 7. Mike Chambers, Adobes principal product manager for developer relations for the Flash platform, blogged, "Adobe and Microsoft are working together to bring Flash Player 10.1 to Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Phone 7 Series. I don't have an ETA or other specifics right now, but it is something that both Adobe and Microsoft are working closely together on."

Further information

The Windows Phone 7 development tools mentioned above are now downloadable from developer.windowsphone.com, according to Microsoft.

Details of the MIX conference, much of which is being webcast live, may be found here.

Mike Chambers' posting on behalf of Adobe may be found here.

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