We are working on few applications and it was important for us to test the applications on REAL Windows Phone 7 Device. However, as you all are aware, Windows Phone 7 hasn’t launched yet in INDIA.

After looking at a lot of places, we found that our best bet was to get HTC HD7 device which is termed as “GLOBAL” from amazon. Although the price was a bit exorbitant, we had luxury of labeling this shiny new gadget expense as business expense .

We checked custom duty implications of the same in INDIA and couldn’t find any definitive answer. But we decide to dive in. We ordered the phone from Amazon on November 29th and selected Priority Shipping (as one of our application was getting bad review because it was not tested on the device, we wanted it ASAP).

Come December 2 (just 3rd Business day), we received the shiny new HTC HD7 Global phone. Custom duty charged was just Rs.680 (out of which FedEx took like Rs.300 Handling). So as it turns out, Custom Duty on Cellphone is a mere 1% in INDIA. This can be useful for people searching for Custom duty to buy Iphones and other phones (Note this does not include Ipad as it is another form of gadget).

Ok, So once I got my HD7, all I did was to insert my AirTel sim and just punched in my LIVE ID and Facebook credentials and it aggregated all my Contacts within few minutes . HTC HD7 is pure joy. There are few niggling issues in OS like Wifi doesn’t always work in all the public routers, few extra steps for easy things like turning Wifi on/off etc. But I suppose they will be fixed up in the time to come.

How about Apps ? Well that’s a different story because being in INDIA I can’t use my credit cards to buy applications. I can install the free ones without any issues though.

We finally registered for Windows Mobile Marketplace. We received multiple confirmations that registrations for Current Windows Mobile Marketplace will be valid for Windows Phone 7 development.

We registered for Windows Mobile Marketplace mainly to get more documentation and benefits related to Windows Phone 7. We also stake claim on Developer version of Windows Phone :)

Signup process for Windows Mobile Marketplace was simple :

• Requires a Windows Live ID
• You get to pick whether you are registering as : Business, Individual or Student. We picked as an individual to get rid of sign up woes. Signing up as business requires Company related documents which as a new company we don’t have. We are in process of applying for the same. We signed up as an individual and hope that we may be able to change it in future.
• They charge $99 fee to signup. I don’t know how but $99!=Rs.5010. I don’t know how MS converts the currency! $1=Rs.46 at the time of signup.
• They sent your order to GeoTrust to Verify you as a legitimate person.
• For India, Geotrust asked us about Passport or Driving License copy faxed to phone number.
• We are still awaiting a “verification” call from them. It’s been already 4 days.

One mistake we did while Signing up and I hope you guys don’t do that is : I didn’t provide cell number as Phone #2.

Once the signup will be complete, we will be shown as Verified Publisher :)

Now on to good stuff, submitting my video to claim WP7 developer Handset :). It is coming in 1-2 days.

BTW, We did email Brandon Watson about our business ideas. I think with posting of Video on YouTube, we will be done with staking claim on that developer Phone :)

UPDATE : We are now approved in Windows Marketplace. Waiting for Microsoft to start accepting applications

We at SilverCrux are ready to announce our big for the Windows Phone 7 Platform. We are going to do something around 6-7 applications that should be available for the Windows Phone 7 launch this holiday season.

We are going to accepting Windows Phone application development projects for outsource as well from October, 2010. Our rates for outsource development on Windows Phone 7 will be quote based, but our quotes will be based on efforts priced at something like $35/hour.

For our products line up, we are not ready to reveal the whole line up. What we are going to do however is do a series of blog posts that will be working towards our first application Pregnancy related. We are thinking about naming it PregnancyTrack .

PregnancyTrack will be pregnancy related application that will helps:

• Help to Plan Pregnancy – Indicate hot dates, apply some gender determinations etc.
• Keeps track of Pregnancy when Pregnancy is achieved, things like week by week development information, Important information, Set up Reminders for Doctor visits etc.
• Once Delivery is complete, it keeps track of baby’s progress upto 12 months timeline. Also contains most important information related to dealing Colic issues, Gripes, Stool etc.

We are thinking that the application will be priced around $2.99

Now back to technical stuff, since this blog is thoroughly technical :

• This will be a Silverlight based application
• For internal database kind of activities, we will be relying on XML and Linq to XML magic.
• For most up to date informations, we will be relying on WCF Services hosted at our product microsite : Pregnancy by Week

Now we haven’t signed up for Windows Mobile Marketplace because we are just awaiting for things to get little clearer. For eg, we aren’t sure if current Marketplace membership enrolment will be valid for Windows Phone 7 application submissions etc. We are also interested in applying for Windows Phone 7 developer phone, but aren’t sure yet how-to do it. If there is any Windows Phone team member reading this, please clarify how to signup for developer phone ? . We are based in INDIA and aren’t sure about your policies regarding giving access of the Developer Phones to developers in INDIA. Even if Windows Phone 7 doesn’t launch here, we still do lot of work for our US Clients and are heavily motivated towards developing for the Windows Phone 7.

In next few blog posts, we are going to walk-through this application from : Photoshop Designs to silverlight implementations. I also want to clarify that this won’t be an open-source project. So guys please don’t ask for Source. We will discuss implementation details but not full source-code.