MIX Day 1 Keynote Recap

Hopefully, you kept up with the MIX'10 Day 1 keynote via our live blog. But if not, here's a recap of the day's announcements, courtesy of Microsoft: MIX10 kicked off today with a keynote from Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president .NET Developer Platform and Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president and director of Windows Phone Program Management. During the keynote, Microsoft unveiled the development platform for the Windows Phone 7 Series that will bring new applications, games and experiences to life. Highlights include: End-to-End Mobile Development Platform: By combining Silverlight for rich internet applications and the XNA Framework for game development, developers and designers will be able to build visually stunning and immersive applications and games on the Windows Phone 7 Series. Free Windows Phone Developer Tools: Microsoft has released a free comprehensive tool support package for Silverlight on Windows Phone 7 Series, available for download. Expression Blend for Windows Phone and a preview of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone will be also included as part of the download. Windows Phone Marketplace: Microsoft made available a new merchandising tool that will enable developers and designers to bring applications and games to market and increase the discoverability of applications with customers while supporting one-time credit card purchases, mobile operator billing and advertising-funded applications. Silverlight 4 Release Candidate (RC): In addition, Microsoft announced a release candidate (RC) for Silverlight 4 which will enable developers to create and deploy even more robust applications and rich interactive experiences. Expression Blend 4 Beta: Microsoft revealed a new beta for its design and development workflow tool which includes features such as Path Layout to enable developers and designers to build and animate innovative UI design via ground-breaking visual layout mechanism, without the need to