Windows Phone 8 goes RTM in September and Devices will come in November

You may have followed our coverage of the upcoming Windows Phone 8 when it was unveiled in San Francisco. We knew that the very promising mobile OS update was going to around the end of the year, but ZDnet’s Mary Jo Foley has reported about a possible Release to Manufacturer (RTM) in September, followed by the arrival of actual devices in November.

This is a bit late in the game given that the next iPhone and a host of Android phones will come out before November, however it is well known that November and December are usually blockbuster months for smartphone sales.

Under the hood, Windows Phone 8 is quite a step up from Windows Phone 7. Although they may look alike from the outside, Windows Phone 8 now uses the same codebase than Windows 8, which provides access to the Windows driver model (WDM) for hardware developers. This is more important than it looks: in the intermediate term, this could turn Windows Phone into a great opportunity for accessories makers — if Microsoft manages to get some traction and sales volume.