Microsoft says its Windows Phone 7 operating system has now passed the 'release to manufacturing' (RTM) milestone. This means that Microsoft has effectively stopped working on the new mobile OS prior to its pre-Christmas launch.
In a blog post, Terry Myerson - Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Engineering – described Windows Phone 7 as the most thoroughly tested mobile platform Microsoft has ever released. He said "We had nearly ten thousand devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes. We’ve had thousands of independent software vendors and early adopters testing our software and giving us great feedback. We are ready."