Joe Belfiore, Senior Vice President and Windows Phone Manager, Microsoft

Pocketnow has seen a video where Joe Belfiore, Senior Vice President and Windows Phone manager, talks about Windows Phone 8, codenamed Apollo. Apparently the video was meant for Nokia partners, but somewhere along its route it took a wrong turn and leaked out. The video talks about a number of Windows Phone 8 features that we’ll most probably see officially announced Mobile World Congress in a few weeks.

Here’s a summary of the article:

• Hardware changes: Multicore processors (in plural), four new screen resolutions, removable microSD card storage, NFC
• Windows 8 integration: WP8 will use many of the same components as Windows 8, meaning that developers can reuse code when porting an app from app to desktop, or vise versa. Mr. Belfiore mentioned the kernel, networking stacks, security, and multimedia support. Desktop Zune is out, a new companion app and syncing software on their way. Deeper SkyDrive integration. More seamless cloud syncing.
• Application ecosystem: Microsoft expectes 100,000 available applications in the Marketplace Apollo is released. This would mean that we’re possibly looking at a release in the fourth quarter. Native code (C++) support. Apps will be able to communicate with other applications (app-to-app communication).
• Data management: DataSmart, which aims to reduce and simplify tracking of data usage. WP8 will actively attempt to give WiFi connections priority, and even auto-joining carrier-owner WiFi networks. Data usage Live Tile. Internet Explorer 10 will use a proxy server to compress web traffic before its being sent to the device, which ultimately will reduce data usage.
• Business: Native BitLocker encryption (128-bit, full-disk encryption). A “Private Marketplace” where companies can deploy proprietary software behind their company firewalls.

It does sound pretty great, doesn’t it?