While Windows Mobile 7 is yet to be announced (even if it is confirmed already), Microsoft is publically hiring employees for its "Entertainment & Devices Division" and the latest job offer from today spill some further beans of Windows Mobile 7 features. As Microsoft describes it, "Social Networks" and "Mobile Phones" are two rapidly evolving socio-cultural phenomena that deeply impact the way in which people interact with each other. Therefore the Windows Mobile 7 Communications group is building experiences on the phone that present your content (friends, pictures, messages, events) to you in immersive and engaging ways. Microsoft's (Windows Mobile 7) vision is to bring social networks to life by integrating them into the core experience of the phone.

For example imagine seeing all the newsfeeds from all the networks you care about in a single hub on the phone. Or imagine the phone instantly telling you what your friend is doing and where he is when you get a call from him.

To realize this vision and build these experiences it's important to have a solid, well-thought out foundation. This is where the "Models" team comes in. This team owns the storage platform and the developer story for all the social content on the phone - friends, photos, newsfeeds, messages, events, etc. Microsoft's aim is to build a "Mobile Social Platform" that provides rich APIs to both internal and external applications and to not only enable but also inspire them to build compelling social experiences.

We are looking for a driven, self-starting and a highly technical program manager who can design this platform. We expect the PM to be able to quickly ramp up to the existing technology - the storage platform (Unified Store) and the APIs (POOM, SODA). Since there are several WM7 teams developing social experiences, the PM will work with these partner teams, understand their requirements and translate them into features for the Models team. The PM should be able to evaluate and consider technical details such as how best to store the data, how to expose it apps, and what the performance trade-off of the various options are as he/she is designing the feature.

We've just begun drawing the first lines of the "Mobile Social Platform"; we are looking for a PM who can envision the future requirements and paint the grand picture. Do you have the passion for this job? Do you see yourself getting knee-deep into schemas, APIs and frameworks while still being able to keep an eye on the vision? Then WE need YOU.

And Microsoft continues:

The vision of WM7 and especially the Communications team is ambitious. We are not building yet another cool phone; but one that is truly personal and relevant. Yes - the competition is stiff; but it's exceeded only by our desire to win.

Ok, so far so good and the social media integration is really worth and makes sense these days. However, if Microsoft is just starting to hire the Senior Program Manager now and - as Microsoft said - the company has just begun drawing the first lines of the "Social Media Platform", it doesn't sounds to me that Microsoft will be ready with a Windows Mobile 7 release in early 2010 but indeed it really sounds like Microsoft can't be ready before 2nd half 2010.

Cheers ~ Arne