Microsoft recently announced that shipments of its newest smartphone, Windows Phone 7 will begin around the 2010 holiday season.

To prepare for the upcoming launch, Microsoft this week released beta versions of the Windows Phone 7 development tools to application coders.

"It's time to get serious about building the actual apps and games for Windows Phone 7 that consumers will be looking for starting this holiday season," said Brandon Watson, Microsoft director for Windows Phone 7, in a blog post.

Most of the tools released in the developer kit are standard Microsoft developer tools that have been modified to work in mobile environments.

Some of the tools include Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, XNA Game Studio 4.0 and Windows Phone 7 Series Emulator, for application testing purposes.

Microsoft hopes to maintain a consistent environment for developers by extending its Windows PC development tools to Windows Phone 7.

The company also announced that when developers have created apps they will be able to market them on an online app store which Microsoft is building at the moment.

With the recent failure of its Kin line of phones and the giant lead other manufacturers like Apple and Nokia have over them, many pundits have predicted that Windows Phone 7 will be the make-or-break for Microsoft in the mobile environment.