Andrew Tech Help

Update: This article is now out of date. Please refer to my newer updated article called "Windows Phone 7 Feature Availablity Matrix: The Mango Edition". It contains updated information that applies to Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango). This article is being kept PURELY for historical purposes (to watch the rollout of features as they slowly make their way to more countries in each version. Thanks!

Windows Phone 7 is available in many different countries across the world, but where you live depends on how much of the experience you are able to get. The 3 major features on the Windows Phone revolve around availability of online services and they are the Zune Marketplace, Xbox Live and Bing Local search. Microsoft has not made each of these 3 services available in every country that they are launching Windows Phone in and therefore have created a mess of what services are available on the phone in each country (with some countries even having partial access to some services).

This particularly affects me because I'm in Australia where we have access to the full Xbox Live experience, but only partial access to the Zune Marketplace (only videos and apps, not music or podcasts) and no access to Bing Local search. I was lucky enough to visit Leo Laporte in the TWiT cottage when my favourite TWiT show was on: 'Windows Weekly with Paul Thurrott' and was briefly explaining this to Leo when Paul joked that Microsoft should pay him NOT to create a Matrix of what Windows Phone 7 features were available in each country.

So I decided to make such a matrix, because it's REALLY frustrating to live in a country which doesn't have access to most of these services. It's hard to encourage other people to get this phone when you tell them it's great and the interface is great, but 2/3 of the advertised features won't work. Some of the gaps can probably be explained by legal rights in that country (such as record company deals with the music marketplace), but others make zero sense (such as the podcast marketplace being US only, they're all free so why can't the whole world access them). Here are two tables with a matrix of countries and availability.

** The Netherlands isn't an offical Windows Phone 7 launch country but still has Zune services available there.

Update: I should also make mention that according to the Windows Phone website: "In countries/regions outside of the United States, certain types of music metadata (album reviews, artist biographies, and background images) might not be available." So that probably explains why most countries outside the US don't have access to have access to things like Picks and Artist information. Also the US is the only country with a Zune Pass to have access to the 10 free downloads per month.

Update: The countries that have made it into the table are the countries that Microsoft said they had estabished the Windows Phone Marketplace, although feedback is saying that some of these countries (notably India) do not have the App Marketplace.

* Has Xbox Live on the console, but have read reports about it not being supported on the phone. Therefore this is subject to change if more up to date information comes to hand.

** The Netherlands isn't an offical Windows Phone 7 launch country but still has Zune services available there.

So that's what my research through Microsoft online services pages (although many of them contradict other pages on their site in typical Microsoft fashion) and forums has told me. There are also a series of countries where Windows Phone 7 is apparently available in stores (and advertised on Microsoft's websites for those countries) where they apparently do not have access to any services, not even the ability to browse, buy or install free or paid third party apps, which is very disturbing. These countries include:

• Bulgaria***
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Finland
• Greece
• Hungary***
• Lithuania***
• Malaysia
• Norway
• Philippines
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Solvakia
• South Africa
• Sweden
• Taiwan

*** Based on Feedback the Windows Phone 7 devices are apparently being sold in this country, but are not listed on Microsoft's website for that country.

The phone is only available in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian so that's the only possible languages that the phone can use in any of those countries, even if the majority of the public doesn't use that language.

Anyway, I REALLY hope Microsoft brings the missing Zune functionality to those countries (such as mine, Australia) which have gaps, so that the Windows Phone 7 experience is consistent across everyone country it's available in. I'm going to keep updating this table and the additions I make in future months to the table after the publication I'm going to put in red with the date the addition occured. If any of this information is incorrect or I've forgotten anything or something changes, then please let me know, I want to make this list as accurate as possible. It's important people know what's available on the phone in their country before they buy it.