Earlier this month, a rumor claimed that Microsoft is prepping a substantial "Blue" update for Windows Phone and in addition to Windows 8 that'll include user experience tweaks and possibly help to unify their development platforms. Microsoft has yet to officially say anything about the Blue update, but some new job listings found by ZDNet contain references to Windows Phone Blue and Windows Blue.
The Windows Phone Blue mention is contained within a listing for a Senior Development Lead for Office. The entry says that Microsoft is looking for someone to help "re-imagine the Excel experiences for the next version of Windows Phone," and later on in the entry, the company says that part of this Senior Development Lead's duties will involve working with counterparts in several organizations to "to help realize the vision of building high quality excel app for Windows Phone Blue."
While there's not much talk about what changes Windows Phone Blue will bring in this job listing, a separate entry for a Software Development Engineer in Test in Windows explains that the Windows Blue update will improve upon the core features of Windows 8 like the Start screen, app lifecycle and personalization in order to improve both the ease of use and user experience. It wouldn't be a surprise to learn that Microsoft has similar plans for Windows Phone Blue, especially since we've heard before that some user experience improvements are planned for the update. Windows Blue is expected to roll out in late summer 2013. Until then, you can keep yourself busy by perusing both of these job listings using the Microsoft Careers links below. We've also got a screenshot of the Windows Phone Blue reference in case Microsoft decides to pull the job listing down.
Via ZDNet, Microsoft Careers (1), (2)
