Windows Phone 7 interview

Thank you to everyone that has been following our interview with Microsoft’s Alex Reeve, Director of Mobile Business Group in the UK and to those of you that sent in your questions for Alex.

For those of you that were not able to join us live we had a great followup interview with Alex, it’s incredible to think that it was almost 3 months ago since our last interview with him!

Sorry that we were not able to get to everyone’s questions but below you will see the questions and answers that we were able to cover in the time available. It’s interesting to note that the same questions came from lots of you so those are the ones we made sure to include.

To those of you following live we apologise for the slow start, Twitter decided to fall over just as we got going!

Full Q&A session after the jump…

Question from tracyandmatt

@ WindowsphoneUK What form factors will be available in #WP7 at launch and what sort of prices will they retail at?

Answer

We haven’t announced anything yet, but there are some very cool form factors with real innovation from our OEM partners #WP7UK

Question from tracyandmatt

What are your plans for video calls within #WP7? What about the skype no-show?

Answer

I haven’t any news on that, sorry. I can say the playback of videos is superb #WP7UK

Question from tracyandmatt

How will #WP7 work within countries that don’t have bing maps, xbox, zune available? (Philippines)

Answer

I only look after the UK business, and we haven’t made any announcements on this yet #WP7UK

Question from tracyandmatt

I read that copy/paste would be an update but not part of #WP7?

Answer

WP7 uses smart links to connect things you might normally copy and paste, reducing the need for it, improving the phone experience #WP7UK

Question from tracyandmatt

Will #WP7 games all require Xbox live integration / branding?

Answer

We don’t have any specific news on this, but WP7 will have a brilliant variety of games #WP7UK

Question from tracyandmatt

@WindowsphoneUK Will Windows Phone 7 have multitasking?

Answer

Common tasks like web pages, syncing mails & playing music, happen in the background with low impact to performance and experience, Instead of battery burning multitasking our new Push Notification Service serves up alerts for event based apps = smart multitasking

Question from tracyandmatt

@WindowsphoneUK Any news on getting developer handsets or more up-to-date SDK bits?

Answer

We are delighted with the level of excitement we’re seeing for Windows Phone Developer Tools! No other news on this just yet #WP7UK

Question from tracyandmatt

@WindowsphoneUK Is there any chance the Microsoft will reconsider their stance and allow the phone manufacturers to have custom UI’s?

Answer

The UI design is different from anything else- integrated & easy. I am 100% confident users will love it, & devs will create great apps #WP7UK

Question from tracyandmatt

@WindowsphoneUK Has the anticipated launch date changed in the past few months?

Answer

It hasn’t changed and we will launch in time for Christmas 2010 #WP7UK

Posted by: Matt

[ Post Tags: Windows Mobile 7, Windows Phone 7 Series, MWC, Microsoft ]