Earlier this week, Microsoft’s French public relations site acknowledged that Microsoft had decided to delay the first major Windows Phone 7 update. On March 10, the WP7 team confirmed that “NoDo” delay, and elaborated on the reasons.
In a post to the Windows Phone Blog, Eric Hautala, General Manager, Customer Experience Engineering, confirmed what the French PR site said on March 9 — that NoDo, the first major update to the Windows Phone OS 7 operating system, which will include copy-and-paste and CDMA support — would commence in the latter half of March.Until this week, Microsoft officials had said NoDo would hit in the first half of this month. Hautala said the problems with the first “minor” WP7 update in February had led Microsoft to push back the NoDo due date. From Hautala’s post:
“But I believe it’s important that we learn all we can from the February update. So I’ve decided to take some extra time to ensure the update process meets our standards, your standards, and the standards of our partners. As a result, our plan is to start delivering the copy-and-paste update in the latter half of March.”
Hautala also emphasized that the NoDo push-back doesn’t mean “Mango,” an update slated for later this year, is going to be late. He blogged:
“This short pause should in no way impact the timing of future updates, including the one announced recently at Mobile World Congress featuring multitasking, a Twitter feature, and a new HTML 5-friendly version of Internet Explorer Mobile.”
(I also take his wording to mean that the IE 9 Mobile browser isn’t going to hit before the rest of Mango, as I’ve seen some bloggers speculating. Microsoft officials have declined to say, when I’ve asked, whether the company is planning to deliver any WP7 updates between NoDo and Mango.)
I’ve heard that Microsoft is still planning to get Mango to its partners in the September/October 2011 timeframe so they can deliver it to customers and preloaded on new WP7 devices in time for holiday 2011. That’s what I’m still hearing, for what it’s worth.
Kudos for the WP7 team being transparent here. Minus points for the delay in being transparent, which has led to a lot of angst among the loyal Microsoft user and enthusiast base upon which Microsoft depends….
