Windows Phone 7 to Get Multitasking, Xbox Game Play, IE9 [Video]

Microsoft has announced that it will update Windows Phone 7 with improved multitasking, simultaneous game play with an Xbox, and Internet Explorer 9.

Microsoft is showing a demo of how a player on the phone might play a game throwing balls at someone playing with an Xbox and Kinect. Microsoft also plans to allow sharing of Office documents directly between phones, Windows PCs and the cloud-based Windows Live service.

Moving the full IE9 browser over to the phone will allow for hardware acceleration and other features that have not been possible on phones in the past, Lees said. For battery and other reasons, Lees said that the new release won't support Adobe's Flash, however Lees said it is not a religious issue for Lees and that the company may add such support down the road.

"We're not allergic to Flash," Lees said. "It's not in this update but we're not making some particular statement that it will never be there."

Microsoft recently signed a major deal with Nokia to get their software on Nokia's hardware which will propel the platform forward and perhaps make it a serious competitor to Android and iOS.