WINDOWS PHONE MARKETPLACE REACHES 25,000 APPS

Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace is now home to more than 25,000 applications, according to the app tracking website WindowsPhoneAppList. That’s a rapid jump from the 18,000 applications that were available in May but it’s still a far cry from the competing app stores offered by Apple and Google. The Android Marketplace is populated with more than 200,000 applications, and Apple said in May that its iTunes App Store boasts more than 500,000 apps. The top-5 paid apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace are all games. Angry Birds is the most popular download, followed by Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1, Plants vs. Zombies, Doodle Jump, and Pac Man Championship Edition DX. Microsoft has yet to officially announce having reached the milestone.

MICROSOFT ON VERGE OF WINDOWS 8 MILESTONE 2 BUILD

Microsoft is on the verge of finishing its second Milestone build of Windows 8, WinRumorshas learned. The software giant has compiled a number of Milestone 2 builds recently ready for the final M2 build that will be distributed internally and externally to the company’s closest partners for testing.

The software giant finalized the M1 build in early December after four months of development. M2 builds began in early December and are expected to be finalized in the next two weeks. Milestone 3 development is expected to last until early June. The current schedule could mean we’ll see a Windows 8 beta in the Summer.

Microsoft has so far been extremely quiet on the Windows 8 front. Windows Chief, Steven Sinofsky, took to the stage at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January to introduce a technology preview of Microsoft’s Windows ARM support and show off an early build of Windows 8. Microsoft is partnering with ARM-based manufactures NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments to produce new Tablet devices. Rumors suggest that Microsoft will create a dual-UI for Windows 8. A tile-based user interface codenamed “Mosh” will reportedly be included.

Steve Ballmer has described the next release of Windows as the company’s “riskiest product bet”. It is understood that Microsoft will feature deep cloud integration into the future OS to realise its vision of “three screens and a cloud”.