Windows 8 for Phone PREVIEW

  

 

   Enter Windows Phone 8, which is pretty interesting. It looks a lot like Windows Phone 7.5 on the surface, aside from a neatly redesigned home screen. But underneath lies a sea change, as Windows Phone 8 will share the same kernel as the desktop version of Windows 8—something that, amazingly, Microsoft has never tried before, in the roughly 15 years it has spent trying to crack the PDA and mobile market.

   

    With Windows Phone 8, Microsoft is also adding support for everything the OS needed, including multi-core processors, multiple (read: higher) screen resolutions, swappable memory cards, IPv6, and NFC. At the conference, Microsoft's head of phone software, Joe Belfiore, demonstrated how NFC can be used to link two phones so their owners can play a Scrabble-like game. Tapping the phones together can engage NFC, and prompt the devices to establish a link over Wi-Fi.

   Developers previously restricted to working in Microsoft Silverlight can now write native code, as well as code in HTML5, XNA, .NET, and C#. The new OS will even use the NTFS file system and support enterprise-level security hooks similar to those for desktop and laptop PCs.

   Windows Phone devices will not be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 8. To appease those users, it's offering up another version, referred to as 7.8, that will contain the home screen customizations and other superficial enhancements, but that's it.

 

   

      Windows Phone 8 will accept expansion memory cards, like Android phones do. It will also work on processors with more than one computing "core," which are common in high-end smartphones. More cores boost computing power and can cut power consumption Windows Phone 8 will share the operating system "kernel," or most basic functions, with Windows 8 RT, which will run on tablets and computers. That means manufacturers will have an easier time making hardware that can use either system. Developers will have an easier time moving applications from one platform to the other, Microsoft

    Microsoft may be taking a big risk here with the release of this new OS, but  don’t think they have any other option. They need to bring their they realy needed a beter OS if they want to rise above their competitors, with Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS having a big lead in the smartphone market. The biggest mistake for Microsoft is the early announcement referring to the actual release. I think 18 months between the two events is going to prove to much for them in terms of revenues from Windows 7.