This week in the Midweek Download, we’ve got great news for Windows Phone developers, as well as another big story out of Microsoft – Office 365.

Developers get a goody basket full of Mangos. In only a few months, Microsoft has surpassed the more established RIM marketplace in the number of real apps available to customers. Since beginning this journey with the new Windows Phone developer platform, we have aspired to be transparent, easy to build for and easy to partner with. We know that one of the most impactful things we can do for developers is to help them get their hands on the actual product. For Mango, that starts today with an early access program for developers. For more detail, read today’s post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog.

And in other Windows phone news…

This week’s edition of Weekend Reading has news on Xbox 360, the re-launch of SkyDrive, Windows Phone, Kinect and other stories from around Microsoft.

And away we go!

In Xbox 360 news this week…Xbox 360 and Kinect made the headlines in a number of publications this week, including CNBC and Geekwire. In this nearly 8-minute video, CNBC's Tyler Mathisen visits Microsoft and takes a look at how Xbox is faring in the marketplace. Also, on Wednesday, Geekwire’s Todd Bishop profiled Xbox 360 software engineer Laura Massey in the online tech pub’s “Geek of the Week” segment. Finally, it was recently announced that Microsoft led all gaming platforms with 55 nominations for the 2011 Game Critics Awards (nine more than in 2010.)

A first look at the rebuilt SkyDrive. On Monday, Microsoft relaunched Windows Live SkyDrive, incorporating HTML5 and taking advantage of recent browser advances to provide a much-improved experience for accessing and sharing Microsoft Office documents, photos and more in the cloud.

Today’s edition of the Midweek Download has new reviews of Windows Phone “Mango" and a few other news bits from all around Microsoft. See what you think…

Windows Phone 7 “Mango” reviews are in! PCMag says this about the next version of the Windows Phone mobile platform: “Windows Phone 7 takes a genuinely different approach to communication than its main rivals.” Here’s what Gizmodo writes: “Pending some killer Nokia hardware or radical Android redesign, I think the choice this fall for all but the nerdiest of nerds is going to be very simple. iPhone or Windows Phone. Nothing else is that pleasant.” To see what others are saying about “Mango,” check out this list of top stories in the Windows Phone news room.

Microsoft kicked off the People’s Choice Award today for the Imagine Cup 2011, a global student technology competition to address humanitarian issues.

Starting from a field of more than 350,000 students, more than 400 of the brightest young minds from 70 countries will travel to New York City, July 8 to July 13, to showcase their innovative ideas for using technology to solve global problems.

World IPv6 Day was on June 8^th and was a resounding success.

IPv6 is the next generation of the Internet Protocol, and defines how computers communicate and address each other across networks. The current version of the Internet Protocol, IPv4, is not able to support the growing number of devices connected to the Internet. This concern, among other issues, is driving the Internet to upgrade to IPv6. IPv6 provides critical performance and architecture improvements for all networks, and will enable a better, faster and more capable Internet.

World IPv6 Day was a one-day test of IPv6 support, with dozens of websites across the technology industry enabling IPv6 access for a 24-hour period. Here at Microsoft, we provided IPv6 access to www.microsoft.com, www.bing.com and www.xbox.com as well as Microsoft advertising services, without any incident.

Microsoft made news on multiple fronts this week, including three big ones – the Kinect for Windows SDK, the one-year anniversary of Office 2010 and Xbox 360.

Here’s the round up:

Kinect for Windows SDK is here! On Thursday, Microsoft announced the arrival of the Kinect for Windows software development kit, which includes not only drivers but also APIs, device interfaces, installer documents and resource materials. It’s another exciting milestone for a technology that has captured the imagination of millions, and has become the fastest selling computer electronics device of all time. For more on this story, read Thursday’s post on the Next at Microsoft Blog. CNET, among other news media, also covered the story.

Anticipation for the Kinect or Windows software development kit beta has been high, and we promised we’d launch before the end of spring.

Well, today is the day - at 10:00 a.m., the SDK will be available for free from Microsoft Research. The SDK includes not only drivers but also APIs, device interfaces, installer documents and resource materials. It’s another exciting milestone for a technology that has captured the imagination of millions, and has become the fastest selling computer electronics device of all time.

Back in February, we announced the intention to release an SDK, and at MIX11, we showed some of the projects that were already underway with the SDK inside and outside of Microsoft.

This week in The Midweek Download, check out stories on how Windows Azure helps fight disease, new tools for Android developers looking to port their apps over to Windows Phone and a host of other news bits.

Unfolding the protein mystery. Cloud computing is helping biologists uncloud one of nature’s biggest mysteries: proteins. Microsoft has partnered with the University of Washington’s Baker Laboratory, one of the world’s top computational biology labs, to give scientists access to some high-caliber computing power. That, in turn, helps them explore and understand proteins, which could eventually lead to thwarting everything from Alzheimer's to Malaria, and from cancer to salmonella. For more on how Windows Azure is being used to fight disease, read this feature story on the Microsoft News Center.

New tools for Android devs interested in Windows Phone. Following up with the Windows Phone guidance and API mapping tool for iPhone developers announced a few weeks ago, Microsoft released a comprehensive package for Android developers on June 9th to easily learn Windows Phone and port their app to Microsoft’s phone platform.

What a month it’s been for Xbox!

First, Microsoft announced major plans for the world’s best-selling entertainment hub at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, including new game titles from blockbuster franchises like Halo, Gears of War and Call of Duty. Also at E3, the company introduced voice search with Bing on Xbox and Kinect that will enable people to use their voice to tell their Xbox what entertainment content they are looking for. As if that wasn’t enough, Microsoft also announced that UFC and YouTube will join ESPN, Hulu + and Netflix on Xbox LIVE.

And if anyone has any doubt that 2011 continues to be the year of Xbox 360, check out the latest numbers from NPD Group, an independent market research firm that tracks the digital entertainment industry. For starters, Xbox 360 has sold more consoles than any other platform for 11 of the past 12 months in the United States. Now in the seventh year of its lifecycle, Xbox 360 is on pace to have the biggest year in its history, a feat never achieved by any console in history.

May 2011 NPD highlights include:

• Xbox 360 sold 270,000 units in May, maintaining the number-one console spot in the U.S.

Lots of news out of Microsoft this week, and not all of it was related to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).

Some highlights: Microsoft pledged $25 million over five years to a new education initiative in Washington State, acquired Prodiance and announced new social capabilities in Bing for Mobile.

Fresh from E3: Xbox LIVE enhancements and new games for Windows Phone. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced some new Xbox LIVE functionality coming in the release of Windows Phone code-named Mango, in addition to some awesome new game titles such as “Beards and Beaks,” “Hasta la Muerte," “Top Gun” and “Splinter Cell.” Also, Windows Phone users will soon find an update to the Xbox LIVE Extras app – this is the new Avatar Marketplace! Now, you have more options to customize your Avatar with a wide range of props and clothing right on your phone. For a complete wrap up on all the news out of E3, read this Tuesday post on the Official Microsoft Blog.

Windows Phone “Mango” and SkyDrive. Microsoft is committed to offering cloud services that deliver access to your information across devices and platforms.

It’s been a busy week at Microsoft this week, what with the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) going on in Los Angeles and all, but Microsoft made lots of news in the last week not related to E3. Check it out…

Delaware schools adopt Microsoft cloud suite. The Delaware Department of Education announced Tuesday that it is working with Microsoft to bring Microsoft Live@edu, an innovative suite of online communication and collaboration tools, to students, faculty and staff in district and charter schools throughout the state. The Department of Technology and Information (DTI) will initially migrate approximately 20,000 faculty and staff to this no-cost platform in June 2011, with the goal being to move everyone to Microsoft Live@edu, as well as offer it to the more-than-129,000-student population, over the next two years. Read this press release on the Microsoft News Center for more detail.

Fujitsu and Microsoft team up on cloud. Fujitsu Ltd. and Microsoft today announced that the first release of its Global Cloud Platform service powered by Windows Azure, running in Fujitsu’s datacenter in Japan, will be launched in August 2011.

Today, Microsoft will join other members of the Internet Society (ISOC) in support of World IPv6 Day as part of a broad industry effort to test the next generation Internet Protocol (IPv6). We’re providing IPv6 access to Bing.com, Xbox.com and Microsoft.com for a one-day test of this vastly improved Internet Protocol.

Users with IPv6 Internet capabilities should automatically utilize IPv6 when connecting to a participating website. To use IPv6, your Internet Service Provider needs to support it, as well as your computer.

Microsoft kicked off the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles on Monday with an intense presentation of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the next installment in the hit game franchise. Want to know how intense? Check out this video in the Xbox newsroom on the Microsoft News Center.

In addition to Call of Duty, Microsoft announced new game titles from blockbuster franchises like Halo and Gears of War. The company also unveiled a flood of new Kinect games (Star Wars!) and entertainment experiences, including voice search with Bing on Xbox and Kinect.

In March, we announced that Microsoft had, with the help of industry partners and law enforcement, taken down the notorious spamming botnet, Rustock.

Since that time, I’m happy to report that the botnet has stayed dead. Our technical countermeasures have worked effectively to prevent the bot’s self-defense mechanisms from reanimating it. Moreover, in the months since the takedown, we’ve seen the number of infected IP addresses (a loose proxy for the number of infected computers) decline as more and more people update their software or get malware removed from their PCs.

Let’s get into it. The big news this week out of Microsoft is obviously the unveiling of some of the UI for the next version of the Windows operating system – internally codenamed “Windows 8.”

And AWAY we go…

“Windows 8” makes a splash. This isn’t going to be your father’s version of Windows. As many now know, on Wednesday, Microsoft raised the curtain on the next version of Windows at All Things D’s D9 conference in California. The demonstration and related news from the Computex Exhibition in Taipei, showed that  future “Windows 8”-based PCs will scale from touch-only small screens through to large screens, with or without a keyboard and mouse. Don’t take my word for it though – go see for yourself. The Microsoft News Center has this video gallery and this image gallery so you can get a closer look at the new OS. Also, be sure to read this Wednesday post on Blogging Windows and this post by All Things D’s Ina Fried.

Xbox: Now THAT’S entertainment! With all the excitement around “Windows 8,” once could almost forget that the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is almost upon us.

This week, Microsoft has a major presence at Computex, where it has shown off a bevy of new Windows devices. Also, check out a few news bits on the continued growth of Internet Explorer 9 and a closer look at IE9 Mobile, coming to Windows Phone this fall.

Computex is where it’s at. During its ninth year at COMPUTEX, Microsoft is showing off more than 130 new, innovative Windows-based devices brought to market by more than 50 of its hardware partners. In its booth, Microsoft showed off nearly 100 PCs, either newly available or soon-to-be-released, ranging from ultraportable thin and light notebooks as well as small and always-connected companions to secure business laptops, high-performance entertainment notebooks and high-end gaming rigs. Check out this feature story on the Microsoft News Center, which includes a 19-image slideshow of some of the Windows devices on display at the show. Not enough to sate your Computex jones? Then watch this video of a guided tour of Microsoft’s Computex booth plus this transcript of the keynote by Steve Guggenheimer, corporate vice president of the original equipment manufacturer division at Microsoft.

IE9 for Windows Phone “Mango” in the spotlight. IE9 Mobile represents a huge jump forward for Microsoft on the mobile platform, effectively unifying the company’s underlying code base for the browser with the desktop version. In this Tuesday post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog, blogger Joe Marini outlines some of the main principles Microsoft is following as it builds IE9 Mobile.

In the ongoing quest for a metaphor that illustrates slow versus rapid change, it’s hard to top the boiled frog. You know the one – drop a frog in hot water and out it leaps; place it in cold water and put it on the stove and the frog will sit there and cook. Atlantic writer and one-time Microsoft employee James Fallows has the most thorough debunking of the metaphor extant, but such is the power of the meme that it continues to show up, even in otherwise reputable publications.

For me, the above perfectly illustrates how hard it can be to recognize a transformation, especially when the transformation takes time (also known as slowly turning up the heat). Case in point: Xbox and entertainment. For the last 10 years at Microsoft, we’ve been turning up the heat on how we think about Xbox, and next week at E3 you will get a chance to see how far we’ve come.

The Great Place to Work® Institute today announced that Microsoft is the inaugural winner of the Best Multinational Workplaces 2011 in Europe award.

This year, 1,380 companies participated in the study, representing more than 1.5 million employees, making it the largest study of its kind. More than 12,000 Microsoft employees participated in the survey across Europe.

“Winning the top spot on our new European Best Multinational Workplaces list, on the back of several national awards, reflects Microsoft’s continued success in creating a working environment where people can thrive,” said José Tolovi Jr., Global CEO for the Great Place to Work Institute.

It was a big week at Microsoft, what with the unveiling of the next version of the Windows Phone mobile platform, dubbed “Mango.” That wasn’t the only news from the company this week though. Read on to see what else happened at Microsoft this week.

Windows Phone Marketplace on the Web. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it will launch a Web-based Windows Phone Marketplace with “Mango.” The Web version of Marketplace will launch with the new OS later this year and give customers another vehicle for discovering your great apps and games. And as a Windows Phone developer, you get all of the added visibility with no extra work. Just as on the phone, customers will be able to browse the full catalog, view screenshots, read application details and reviews and choose from all of the supported languages for that app. Want more details? Read this Wednesday post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog. Speaking of apps, check out this preview of a British Airways app that gives a three-dimensional view of an airplane cabin, courtesy of the Next at Microsoft Blog.

Behind the scenes with Mango. On Wednesday, Microsoft’s Channel 9 published a series of fascinating behind-the-scenes interviews with some of the engineers who created the new “Mango” features we just announced.

Yesterday, Microsoft made big news in New York City when it debuted the next version of the Windows Phone mobile platform, codenamed “Mango.” “Mango” will bring hundreds of new features to Windows Phone, including a new set of developer tools for creating applications that run on the platform. More on those new tools below.

New beta “Mango” tools now available. The beta release of the Windows Phone Developer Tools that support Mango are now available for download. Developers can use this beta release to get ready for the upcoming Windows Phone OS release. The new application platform capabilities coming in Mango deliver the top features you have asked for. Some of those features include: background processing, Silverlight 4, Internet Explorer 9 Web browser control, fast application switching and live tile enhancements, just to name a few. For the whole story on the new developer tools, read this post on the Windows Phone Developer Blog.

Windows Live Messenger and Windows Phone bring IM and texting together. In other Windows Phone news this week, Microsoft announced Monday that the next release of Windows Phone will come with a seamless, built-in texting and IM experience powered by Windows Live Messenger. Read this post on the Inside Windows Live Blog to see more of what the integrated Messenger experience will offer.

A new study by Microsoft shows that the ability to work from outside the office is no longer an employee perk; it is a business imperative. The study also finds that remote working offers real benefits to employers and employees alike.

Called Work Without Walls, the study surveyed more than 4,000 information workers in the manufacturing, financial services, retail/hospitality and professional services industries. Among its findings:

Today in New York City, Microsoft unveiled the next version of the Windows Phone mobile platform, codenamed “Mango.”

“Seven months ago we started our mission to make smartphones smarter and easier for people to do more,” said Andy Lees, president of the Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft. “With ‘Mango,’ Windows Phone takes a major step forward in redefining how people communicate and use apps and the Internet, giving you better results with less effort.”

Due out this fall, “Mango” will sport hundreds of new features designed to deliver a faster, richer, more personal experience for Windows Phone owners. In addition, “Mango” will enable Windows Phone to expand into new markets and extend global reach and scale through support for a host of new languages and new partnerships with Acer, Fujitsu Limited and ZTE Corp. The Windows Phone Marketplace, which currently has more than 17,000 apps, will also be available in 35 countries starting this fall.

For many of today’s workers, using sites like Facebook and Twitter for personal communication has become second nature. Using these sites for work-related reasons is quickly becoming commonplace too, especially in remote working scenarios. According to a recent survey sponsored by Microsoft and conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, when working remotely, 42 percent of information workers at small and midsized businesses (SMBs) use public social networking tools (Facebook, Twitter) to collaborate with colleagues.

It may not come as much of a surprise to you to hear that these public sites do not meet the same security and privacy protocols as in-house measures provide. Yet, less than one-third (29 percent) of SMB information workers report that their companies provide access to internal social networking tools.

Much of the big news out of Microsoft this week focused on our alliances with partners like Verizon Wireless, Facebook and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Read on for the details.

The HTC Trophy comes to Windows Phone via Verizon. Verizon Wireless announced Thursday that the HTC Trophy, its first Windows Phone, will be available on its website starting May 26—and hit Verizon stores a week later on June 2. The phone will cost $149.99, after accounting for a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year contract. For many folks, that’s probably good enough reason to buy. But check this out: Verizon is sweetening the deal with a free Xbox 360 console game (up to $60 in value) for anyone who picks one up before July 15. Interested? Read more about the Trophy, pictured left, in this post on the Windows Phone Blog.

Today marks a significant milestone in the ongoing fight against the abuse of Internet technology for the heinous sexual victimization of the most innocent in our society. As you may have read in the New York Times, Facebook is joining Microsoft in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s PhotoDNA program to combat child pornography. NCMEC’s program, using image-matching technology created by Microsoft Research in collaboration with Dartmouth College, gives online service providers an effective tool to take more proactive action to stop the distribution of known images of child sexual abuse online.

Both Facebook and Ernie Allen, president and CEO of NCMEC, provided more information about the news and the growing problem of child exploitation online that inspired this effort on Facebook and the Microsoft on the Issues Blog, respectively. And we invite you to join the Facebook Live event at 3 p.m. ET on May 20^th for a live discussion of this positive development in combating technology-facilitated crimes against children.