The Windows Phone 8 smartphone OS, currently known as “Apollo” will officially contain the same technology as the PC.

Microsoft's next version of their office productivity suite software will be distributed to a select group of testers later next week, while the public beta release is reported to arrive to testers later this summer.

Many people are eagerly awaiting the release of Windows Phone 8, but one renowned blogger has posted that Windows Phone 8 is actually codenamed Windows Phone Apollo. Since the post, many people are wondering if he means that a we won't actually see a separate OS named Windows Phone 8, but rather we will simply see an updated Windows Phone 7?

What actually makes a smartphone or mobile device "smart" and which mobile operating systems are considered smart? By most people's standards, the ones that fit the bill are iOS, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry and Android. What features does Windows Phone 7 have that put it in the list?

Some developers played World of Warcraft, while others slaved at EverQuest. The ability to earn virtual badges, like in EverQuest, kept them playing for hours on end. Microsoft's recent introduction of its Achievements extension for Visual Studio combines that love of virtual badges with a developer kit, and many developers are ready to achieve.

Most developers are aware that Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 operating system will include additional sensor support and new hardware sensors, and will make it easier for developers to target and use the sensor technology with Metro Style apps. Along with sensor support, Microsoft is adding automatic screen rotation, adaptive brightness and compass support.

Windows Phone 7 devices have not exactly been flying off the shelves, and Microsoft has even been reluctant to release sales statistics. Two research firms, however, believe that Windows Phone 7 devices will outnumber the iPhone by 2015.

This week OpenText announced the expansion of its global alliance agreement with Microsoft which will bring greater support for Microsoft's cloud computing endeavors. The agreement specifies that OpenText's recently created Business Process Solutions (BPS) Group will provide process management and case management solutions for Windows Azure.

This week brings the release of Security Ninja's Windows Phone App Analyser, an application that enables developers, and other interested parties, to evaluate Windows Phone 7 .xap files and automatically decompile the .dll files within them. Based on the static security analysis tool Agnitio, the Analyser provides a way for developers to enhance the security of their applications.

Microsoft's release of Entity Framework 4.3 Beta 1 last week was the last beta version of the software the company will release before the finished version becomes available to the public later this year. The latest beta included NuGet integration enhancements and bug fixes, and signals that the timing is looking favorable for the final release.

This week Microsoft added Xbox 360-style Achievements to its Visual Studio development environment. One thing that Visual Studio lacked was a way to motivate developers into staying on task, and Achievements is Microsoft's solution for that issue.

Two leaders in the IT world, Microsoft and Google, are working to incorporate gamification into two of their respective products, Visual Studio and Google Maps, as part of a trend that illustrates a forward leaning interest in technology that is used to increase the adoption of said technology.

Amazon this week announced a new arrangement with Microsoft in which they will offer Windows users the opportunity to try out Windows Server 2008 R2 on an EC2 micro for up to one year. Amazon sees the platform as a way to create test environments, build AWS apps even just to host a website.

A cloud-based mobile app solution provider, FeedHenry, this week announced the first commercial enterprise mobility solution which enables the creation of hybrid apps using Node.js as an integrated backend-as-a-service. FeedHenry studio allows developers to create hybrid apps using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS, techologies they are already familiar with.

The new Metro-style user interface (UI) that Microsoft has been discussing will become very familiar to everyone once Windows 8 is released. Developers need to begin to consider how they will be using the Metro-style UI within their apps, and how they will be different from traditional desktop apps, which will still be a part of Windows 8.

This week SendGrid, an email deliverability software provider, released details about a partnership with Microsoft in which the SendGrid email infrastructure package will be included with Windows Azure. The agreement will initially provide Windows Azure customers with a free email infrastructure package that includes 25,000 free emails per month.

Although most developers are aware that Microsoft is a player in the cloud services arena, it's anyone's guess if they will be among the top "cloud players" in 2012. If they are to be a key player in the cloud industry, which service or feature will they be providing with Azure that no other competitors can touch?

Microsoft has been steadily working on the upcoming release of its Mango OS, otherwise known as Windows Phone 7.5. Along with the standard release, observant developers have noticed another version, Mango Commercial Release 2, that recently appeared on the Nokia Lumia 900 spec list.

Even over the holidays, Microsoft continued to ramp up its open source efforts, focusing on Windows Azure and then jumping into improvements and billing issues for its SQL Azure Database. The initial offering of the Windows Azure software development kit (SDK) has also excited many developers, as it includes language libraries for Node.JS.

This week Genuiter announced the release of its new MobiOne tools for Windows, a development toolkit that is based on the WebKit browser which enables developers to create App Store-ready iOS apps using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. MobiOne tools for Windows supports iPhone and iPad design and testing, and includes emulators for both platforms.

This week at CES, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer demonstrated a newly ported version of the popular iOS game Cut the Rope--created using HTML5. The game was created by ZeptoLab and Pixel Lab, who partnered with Microsoft to bring a version of the game to all modern web browsers using HTML5.

This week Zendesk, a customer help desk management service software provider, announced the launch of a new Windows Phone app which will provide additional cloud-based call centers for small businesses that provide communications support for their customers.

The next version of Microsoft Windows is going to include some serious changes, and not just under the hood. The release of Windows 8, which will be forthcoming some time this year, gets rid of the traditional Windows icons and menu buttons, and uses a series of interactive tiles similar to those currently used in the Windows Phone 7 OS.

Over the years, the ASP.NET framework community has grown, and developers have embraced the technology along with the improvements that have arrived for SQL connectivity and command functionality. Another thing became clear over the years--Microsoft was positioning SQL Server to be the main storage point and analytical core of its enterprise reporting system.

This week Netgear unveiled its Smart Network Cloud Application Platform (SNCP) to developers at the atCES 2012 conference. SNCP allows consumers to buy and download apps, enabling them to optimize and customize networking devices via the cloud.