Microsoft announced earlier today, via the Windows Team Blog, that it would be releasing its Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system to manufacturers. Redmond noted that the mobile operating system is the most “thoroughly tested” mobile platform it has developed.

“We’re very excited to say that we’ve reached the biggest milestone for our internal team – the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Phone 7!  While the final integration of Windows Phone 7 with our partners’ hardware, software, and networks is underway, the work of our internal engineering team is largely complete,” Terry Myerson wrote.

Exactly one month ago, iWinUX reported that 3,000 Windows Phone 7 devices had been using a Facebook application to connect the devices to Facebook. So it’s no surprise when Microsoft says that it had 10,000 phones in testing daily up until this point. Microsoft also plans to give all 90,000 of its employees a WP7 device.

Microsoft has also been listening to feedback and acting on it, as the Myerson wrote that feedback showed users wanted ways to filter their contacts so Facebook friends only appear if you really know them, and Redmond added support for just that.

Other Facebook features include the ability to view Facebook and even “like” posts from the device’s “People Hub”, or write on their wall directly from the device.

Microsoft is being reported to be spending half a billion dollars on Windows Phone 7, which is the company’s latest attempt to enter the smartphone market as a serious competitor. Half of a billion is  to be spent on marketing and development, says analyst Jonathan Goldberg.

“This is make-or-break for them. They need to do whatever it takes to stay in the game,” says the Deutsche Bank telecommunications analyst. “It’s still wide open. They don’t have to take share from Android or Apple, so long as they can attract enough consumers switching from feature phones.”

When Goldberg visited Microsoft HQ at Redmond, Washington, earlier this week, an executive told him that the company would likely spend at least a billion on Windows Phone 7 in the first year.

“We have a long-term view and Microsoft has been in this position before in other businesses where we’ve had to take a long-term view,” says Greg Sullivan, who would not go on record about the estimates.”

“The mobile phone market is growing by leaps and bounds, but it’s still in the early stages,” the Microsoft senior product manager said.

Microsoft has announced that there will be an increase in its Xbox Live Gold subscription service for North America and the United Kingdom. Larry Hryb, Microsoft’s Major Nelson of Xbox Live-fame, announced the following prices on his official blog:

Unless noted in the above chart, other subscription packages remain the same price. Current Xbox Live Gold subscribers can now purchase a 12-month subscription at a 30 percent discount, so if you aren’t digging the new price, it would be wise to purchase early. You can view the Price Lock page here.

$59.99 might seem like a lot of money for a Gold subscription, but the increase only amounts to 16 cents a day (US).

The Xbox Live subscription price will increase on November 1, 2010.

Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft in 1975 with Bill Gates, has filed suit against 12 major corporations over technology he claims to have patented.

The companies: Google, Facebook, eBay, Apple, Yahoo Inc., AOL Inc., Netflix, Office Depot Inc., OfficeMax Inc., Staples Inc. and YouTube, a subsidiary of Google.

All four patents are for technology innovated more than 10 years ago by a software company that Allen owned. Interval Research Corp was financed for about $100 million by Allen during the Dot Com bubble, and was shut down soon after.

The second patent,which allows a website to offer suggestions related to items that the user is viewing, is a feature on Amazon, but Amazon has not been listed. (Maybe for being Seattle-based?) Microsoft, the company that Allen co-founded with Bill Gates, is also missing from the list of companies being filed upon.

The other patents are for technology that enables ads and stock quotes (among other things) to flash on screen, and provides links of related news stories for readers who are viewing a topic.

No doubt that the reason Allen and his firm, Interval Licensing LLC, are suing is from the success of NTP Inc, who won the suits it had with Apple, BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion Ltd, and Microsoft in 2006.

One result was RIM settling out of court with NTP at the price of $612.5 million. So maybe Allen has a chance?

When Windows Live Essentials 2011 beta 2 released yesterday, many users were disappointed at the bloated and complex nature of some of the programs — most notably, Windows Live Messenger.

While the program is definitely bloated, Messenger shows that Redmond can still come up with nifty new ideas to innovate and keep its Messenger client relevant. Third-party instant messaging clients are already mimicking the integration into social media.

Look at the new beta for Trillian 5 for example.

Even though at first I didn’t like the change, I’m already used to using WLM to browse my Facebook stuff. I don’t even need to query the Facebook website if I already have WLM open and chatting with my friends.

Just think about how great it would be to view Windows Live Essentials 2011 on your Microsoft-branded tablet. The tablet is supposed to be running a variant of Windows 7, so a similar app for the tablet could possibly be developed with all the social interactions intact.

The ability to chat with your Windows Live Messenger friends list, browse Facebook, and even chat with your Facebook friends are all features would come in handy in one app. There is already a similar app for the iPad called “Flipboard”, but the app isn’t developed by Apple — it’s a third-party.

Microsoft is coming into the tablet business with a huge advantage: a lot of the problems Apple faced have been fixed, and Microsoft knows how to avoid those mistakes. And just like it always is, Apple will innovate and stun the market while Microsoft is late to the party. Once things die down or Apple has a huge problem, Microsoft comes in with its solutions and pushes Apple to the side.

Amidst antenna issues and battery problems, it looks like Microsoft is making its way to the table with the tablet and its Windows Phone 7 devices.

I just hope the tablet’s name is catchier than “BlackPad“.

Earlier today, Microsoft released the second beta of its Windows Live Essentials 2011 suite. The new beta brings new functionality to Windows Live Messenger, Writer, and Mail (among others). Users can now use Messenger for social networking, as well, as using the normal instant messaging feature.

Within Messenger is the ability to connect to your Facebook and MySpace accounts, faster sign-in times, quicker social media feed refreshes (in comparison to beta 1), more in-sync animation speed, and the compatibility with Facebook Chat.

This new build of Messenger also uses less resources compared to the first beta that was released on June 24, 2010. According to PC Magazine, Messenger now uses 30 percent less CPU resources, because it defers work to the GPU.

Writer gets better integration for Redmond’s Office and it gets an updated version of spell check. Family Saftey’s Web filtering is now over 30 percent faster than the first beta. Photo Gallery gets a preview feature and an improved tree view.

Movie Maker has been heavily improved, as the program now supports a higher bit-rate (480×640), a Snapshot feature that allows single-framed grabs, video uploads to the SkyDrive service, and the ability to publish videos straight to Flickr.

You can download Windows Live Essentials 2011 beta 2 here.

Today, in 1996, Internet Explorer 1.0 was released to the public, one year after Microsoft released Windows 95. A lot of people had their doubts about the longevity of Redmond, Washington’s flagship Internet browser.  It has made it this far, all the way up to Internet Explorer 8.

Currently, Internet Explorer 9 is under development. Not much is known about the browser, other than September 15 is set to be the beta release date, and that Microsoft is taking a “minimalistic approach”.

“The browser is the theater,” Microsoft’s Ryan Gavin was quoted in an interview last week. “We’re not the play. You don’t want the theater to block the view.”

The updated browser is set to be the company’s fiercest opponent for Google’s Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox, and Apple’s Safari browsers. The three have been steadily gaining market share, with IE losing market share in the Browser market.

After the release of  IE6 in 2001, Microsoft did not release a major update for the browser until Vista and IE7 in 2006. This allowed Mozilla to innovate and develop features for its Firefox browser, and Microsoft has been trying to catch up ever since.

While the market share percentage is there, Microsoft has just really failed at innovating new ideas for its browser. Microsoft is hoping that IE9 will change that.

Happy birthday IE, it’s been a long ride.

Microsoft announced yesterday that a “select group of VIP web developers, designers, bloggers, and press” are to begin receiving formal invitations to a Microsoft event in San Francisco, California on September 15.

This event is planned to celebrate the launch of the Internet Explorer 9 beta and to celebrate the “Beauty of the Web”. James Pratt, of the Windows Team Blog, posted a video of what the invitation process looks like — since most of the world will not get to experience the invite process. As Pratt explains, “invitees get an e-mail invitation with a link to a special HTML5 website. To RSVP, they have to complete a word puzzle by typing the letters shown on the screen.”

The puzzle? “Unlock the _ _ _ _ _ _ web.” The letters of the anagram are V E A N T I. (The answer is NATIVE.)

Microsoft has released four developer previews of IE9 with the last being released yesterday. Redmond has yet to state when the first public build of IE9 will launch. Mary-Jo Foley, of All About Microsoft, has stated that she thinks IE9 will debut in April at the 2011 MIX conference.

For the first time in Microsoft’s 35 year history, Microsoft has launched a website that counters Apple’s constant barrage of ad campaigns against the Redmond, Washington-based company. Apple is quite known for its anti-PC advertising campaigns, like the “Get a Mac” campaign featuring Justin Long.

Apple has always made Microsoft look like its nerdy older brother, with Apple being the cool and hip younger brother. According to the statements made on the website, Microsoft agrees — just a little.

The website states that while Macs aren’t very customizable, PC’s can be altered in many ways and that the PC interface isn’t as complicated compared to the Mac interface. Microsoft also brings up compatibility, sharing, and work use.

Alex Albrecht of Diggnation had a good theory on why Microsoft has continued to let Apple denigrate Redmond and its products: Microsoft simply did not want to publicly acknowledge Apple as a competitor. If Microsoft did, Albrecht said that it would give Apple market credibility.

Apparently, Woz and Co. don’t mind any longer.

Microsoft is slowly, but surely, becoming a threat against Apple and the products that launched the Cupertino, California-based company into the mainstream. Microsoft is currently developing and designing a tablet and a smart-phone operating system among other things.

Engadget came across a Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 video that seemed to have “slipped the net”. The video is a segment from Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner’s infamous Windows Phone 7 presentation. In the video, Turner confirms that Windows Phone 7 devices will be released in October for Europe and in November for the US.

The news is pretty significant as this is the most straight-forward news that has been released by Microsoft about its upcoming mobile phones. Still, the biggest headline that stemmed from Turner’s presentation was when the Microsoft COO compared the bumper issues with Apple’s iPhone 4 to the failures of Windows Vista.