Microsoft is gearing up the next version of Windwos Phone 7 Codenamed Mango. To leverage new phone features while conituning to develop application for Windows Phone OS 7.0, Microsft has released Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta that enable you to get started developing applications Mango.

Mango has numerous performance improvements such as fast application switching and the ability to run tasks in the background. In addition, Mango provides support for sockets and local database storage. For more information about the improvements and features in Mango, see What’s New in Windows Phone Developer Tools.

Mango also offers support for many of the features that were offered in Silverlight 4 such as improved data binding, RichTextBox and Viewbox controls, webcam and microphone capture. For more information about new features for Silverlight for Windows Phone, see What’s New for Silverlight for Windows Phone.

However, the new Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta can be used to develop Applications for both 7.0 and 7.1 version of Windows Phone OS releases.
Download Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 [Web Installer] | [Offline ISO image]
Courtesy: Microsoft