Windows Phone 7 Architecture Leaks, "Developing Nations" Hardware Revealed

From DailyTech: This week, details about both the Windows Phone 7 architecture and low-end phone hardware for developing nations was aired.

Microsoft faces much the same position as Palm does in the smartphone market -- it's losing marketshare to a charging Google and is falling farther away from entrenched market leaders Apple and Research in Motion.

Microsoft's answer is a complete reboot of its smartphone franchise, however, some are skeptical. The initial implementation of Microsoft's new operating system -- Windows Phone 7 -- reportedly will lack many features that competitors have, such as support for multi-tasking and copy/paste. Still, many are intrigued to see what the new design will bring.

Tweakers.net received leaked slides showing the architecture of the new smartphone OS. The OS is a 32-bit operating system. Under the memory model, application processes get up to 2 GB of memory, 1 GB of which is virtual memory. The kernel, likewise, gets its own 2 GB of memory space.

The mandated processor will be an ARMv7 design. Multi-touch, FM Tuner, Wi-Fi, GPS, and camera are also mandated. The default screen resolution is 800x480 pixels, but developers can go as low as 480x320 (the resolution of the current iPhone).

Microsoft is providing OEMs with 2D graphics and DirectX 10-based Direct3D 11 runtimes, while they will be responsible for providing drivers for their graphics hardware.

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