Microsoft Dishes On Windows Phone 'Tango' And More

BARCELONA—Tango is not a thing. While Microsoft is plowing ahead on getting Windows Phone into lower-cost devices in more countries, the OS update previously known as "Tango" is just being rolled into Windows Phone 7.5, Windows Phone senior product manager Greg Sullivan said in an interview with journalists today.

"This is Windows Phone 7.5. It's a refresh," Sullivan said.

Gaining Windows Phone, but Losing Multitasking
Whether or not Tango is a thing, there have been some changes to the Windows Phone platform this week. The OS now runs on Qualcomm 7x27 processors and in 256MB of RAM, enabling lower-cost phones. Nokia and ZTE have announced the first two low-cost Windows Phones, the Nokia 610 and the ZTE Orbit, both coming out in the second quarter of the year. The 610 will cost around $250 before subsidy, meaning it could easily be free with contract.

But using a slower processor means some performance tradeoffs, most notably the loss of Windows Phone's multitasking (except for background audio) and slower performance for apps that use a lot of memory. Local Scout is also gone, as it stored a large amount of data in RAM.

"Some apps have memory issues and they will invoke paging, the ability for apps to page in and out of RAM," Sullivan said. "That can affect the performance. The browser pages after a certain memory limit."

Microsoft tested the system with the top 400 Web pages, but some very heavy pages will have to page out of RAM, affecting performance, Sullivan said.

And even though Tango is primarily designed to enable low-cost devices for a wider range of countries than Windows Phones have appeared in before, it'll bring a few new features to higher-end phones as well. The OS update adds the ability to attach multiple pictures, audio notes and ringtones to MMS messages, for instance.

The update will come to phones during the second quarter of this year, Sullivan said.

New Features for New Chips
Several of Microsoft's phone-making partners released new devices this week with cool new hardware, whether it's HTC's Image Sense camera processor or Nokia's PureView 41-megapixel camera. I asked Sullivan whether and when Windows Phone would support these innovations, and he said Microsoft was working on the ability to support proprietary OEM hardware extensions beyond the basic application processor. Could there be an "HTC One W" in the future?

"We're working with [phone makers] to enable exactly that," he said. "I don't want to comment on what [the phone makers] said, but we're working with them on the ability to do exactly that."

One company isn't waiting. The ZTE Orbit has NFC built in, but Windows Phone doesn't currently support NFC. OEMs can build their own NFC apps, and Microsoft plans to roll NFC into a later release of the platform, Sullivan said.

"NFC is on the roadmap," he said.

What About Verizon and Sprint?
Windows Phone has a major uphill climb, though. While it now has 65,000 apps and more than a dozen phones available worldwide, the platform has gotten little sales traction in its first year. That's in part because Apple has defined the terms of the marketing conversation, Sullivan said, and Windows Phone is very different–and in his view, of course, better.

"I think people have had a usage model foisted upon them and they don't realize why it sucks," Sullivan said. "Apple has invested a tremendous amount of money in equating the phrase 'there's an app for that' with the value of a smartphone. Applications are the lifeblood of any platform and the economics of platforms are wholly dependent on applications that run on them, but…we think the phone should bring information to you…and enable complete end-to-end scenarios that help you do what you want to do. We're confident that the user experience we've designed enables people to get to the stuff that matters to them," he said.

Of course, it would help if Windows Phones were available to more consumers in the U.S. Verizon and Sprint, especially, have had extremely thin selections. Windows Phone didn't launch with CDMA support in the OS, which sapped momentum there.

"The initial delay in the platform capability of CDMA may have impacted the investment by OEMs in devices so we'll see a resultant lag," Sullivan said. "Verizon and Sprint are both very important partners in the U.S., and we have teams that work with both of them."

Back at CES, Sprint's David Owens said the carrier would take another look at Windows Phones late this summer, when Windows Phone 8 is rumored to be announced. While Sullivan wouldn't comment on that time frame, that could be an opportunity for Microsoft to turn this around.

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