A number of operators have announced plans to offer the phones, including America Movil, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Movistar, O2, Orange, SFR, SingTel, Telstra, Telus, T-Mobile USA and Vodafone.
Microsoft said a "broad selection" of the phones will begin shipping in time for this year's holidays, with more arriving in 2011, including phones from Sprint and Verizon Wireless. In addition, select models will be available at Microsoft Store locations and from Amazon. Unique features of the new OS include Live Tiles, similar to widgets which bring live updates form applications and services to the handset's home screen; mobile games over Microsoft's Xbox Live service; the Zune music service, available as a susbcription or via downloads and streaming from the Windows Marketplace; dedicated web search from the home screen with Bing; Windows Live to manage personal content, agenda and information from other Windows software; and the free Find My Phone service to remotely ring, lock, erase and show the location of the phone on a map.
Confirmed launches in time for the holdiays include AT&T with the HTC Surround, Samsung Focus, and LG Quantum; T-Mobile USA with the HTC HD7 and Dell Venue Pro; Telus with the HTC 7 Surround and LG Optimus 7; and America Movil with the LG Optimus 7 in Mexico.
In Europe, O2 will offer the HTC HD7 in the UK and Germany; Orange will sell the HTC 7 Mozart and Samsung Omnia 7 in France and the UK; France's SFR has the HTC 7 Trophy and Samsung Omnia 7; Movistar will sell the LG Optimus 7, HTC HD7 and Samsung Omnia 7 in Spain; T-Mobile will offer the HTC 7 Mozart and Samsung Omnia 7 in Germany; and Vodafone has the HTC 7 Trophy in Germany, Spain and the UK and LG Optimus 7 in Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.
In Asia, Singtel will sell the HTC HD 7 and LG Optimus 7 in its home market, while Telstra is launching the HTC 7 Mozart and LG Optimus 7Q in Australia. Vodafone will also sell the HTC 7 Trophy in Australia. Microsoft said that in total over 60 operators have confirmed plans to launch the phones in 30 countries.
