Microsoft confirms Windows Phone Mango released to manufacturers

Microsoft has announced that the final build for the first edition of the Windows Phone Mango operating system has been released to manufacturers and will be on handsets before Christmas.

Terry Myerson, corporate vice president of Windows Phone engineering at Microsoft, said in a blog post that the final milestone had now been reached. Handset manufacturers will typically spend about 90 days checking the code on their hardware after it has been released.

"This marks the point in the development process where we hand code to our handset and mobile operator partners to optimise Mango for their specific phone and network configurations," he said.

"Here on the Windows Phone team, we now turn to preparing for the update process. The Mango update for current Windows Phone handsets will be ready this fall, and of course will come pre-installed on new Windows Phones."

Microsoft began showing off Mango in April and released beta code to developers last month. The update to Windows Phone 7 will feature improved HTML5 integration, faster IE9 operation and true multi-tasking for the first time.

The company has said that it will not put Windows Phone Mango on tablets, leaving that market to Windows 7 and 8, but will instead put it on a range of smartphones, including those at the cheaper end of the spectrum.