Microsoft Details Language Support for Windows Phone Mango!

In a post today over at the Windows Team Blog, John McConnell, Principal Program Manager, Windows Phone Engineering, all of the additional language support that will be included in the Mango update. This is something that has not been fully covered before, as it doesn’t have the bling of the new market place or Games hub, but accounts for a few more of those 500 Fabled improvements.

What is obvious is that the update process is so good that peoples settings propagated to their phones, and they did not look for these added features. The Mango Beta does actually include all of the added language support.

Although we still have a long way to go, Mango represents a sizeable step forward. At launch last year we supported 5 display languages: English (US and UK), French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
In Mango, we’re adding 17 more: Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish.

Whilst Windows Phone was rushed to market, and the NoDo update firmed it up in general, as a useful operating system, Mango is the major update that should bring it into real contention in the OS wars. Microsoft’s move to not limit the OS to specific languages, will only give Windows Phone more leverage in more markets. It might be a slow build, but momentum is definitely building for the OS. It looks like the Zune desktop software will also support all of the new languages, but the options you see on your handset will be restricted by your region and carrier, unless you have an unlocked, world device.

I want to stress that you might not see all these display languages listed as options on your phone. The exact display options depend on your handset manufacturer and mobile operator.

Obviously, the more languages supported on your device, the more storage you don’t have access to, the language data takes up a lot of space. The Mango Beta on an 8Gb Mozart, is taking up at least 2Gb of space. There are also some extended localisation features supported

Below is a list of some of the questions the Windows Phone Engineering team gets asked regardging specific phone features:

• Bing search (accessed from the phone’s hardware Search button) is available in 33 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and the United States. (Elsewhere, handset and mobile operators can configure the hardware search button to a locally-relevant search site).
• Local search results show up in 6 countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom, and the United States.
• Maps is supported in 19 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.
• Voice-to-text and Voice-to-dial is available in 6 countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, and the Unites States.
• Voice search is supported in 4 countries: France, Germany, United Kingdom, and the United States.

We can see that a lot of the features that we thought would only be UK US based, available, have been expanded, albeit, inconsistently. but it does look like Microsoft have been listening, and are trying to provide a blanket support service for the OS worldwide, even if it’s taking a bit of time. Most of the features above are working fine in the beta release.

There’s also what a lot of people may call a golden egg in the post, concerning Zune services.

This fall you’ll see a significant increase in the number of new countries where the Xbox LIVE service for Windows Phone is available. The Zune Marketplace for music, video, and podcasts is also expanding to more markets. We’re not quite ready to announce specifics just yet—expect to hear more later this summer.

It’s hard to interpret that news, but I wonder if it points to Microsoft actually putting some effort into an internet marketplace for video and music content, we know that the Zune as a PMP got a very limited market, and I wonder if Microsoft see Windows Phone as a way to shore up infrastructure that they already have in place. Either way, Windows Phone becomes more consumer friendly with every announcement, and if the Beta is anything to go by, it will be a really firm release.