Development Tools for Windows Phone 7 series to be announced

I just had a short conversation with a friend of mine that happens to work at Microsoft and he unofficially dropped a bit about the development tools. He said that

"[...] we're not ready to mention it [...]" and "[...] we will reveal most of it in the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco and MIX 10 in Vegas."

Aside from the questions it raises on the development tools, SDKs, etc, I am very pleased with the fact that the announcement will be made in a game developer conference. This means that Microsoft's push on Windows Phone 7 is aimed at regaining some serious consumer credibility on the smartphone arena. Consumer cred is much more difficult to regain than corporate since most of the corporate customers are still using Windows and are now looking into migrating their systems to Windows 7 if they have not already done so.

I know this is not much information, but I have received too many questions regarding the future of the development platforms not to mention this bit.

If you are developing applications for Windows Mobile 6.x, my suggestion is that you stick to patterns and practices because that's how you will assure a smooth transition with no (or few) glitches.