Microsoft’s Tango update to Windows Phone may come in two parts

Earlier this week we brought you news from Hong Kong that Microsoft had, supposedly, outlined a number of key elements of the Tango update to Windows Phone.

Most of our suspicions were confirmed. Tango will be a lower cost version of Windows Phone that is designed to serve non-mainstream markets, and it is, in fact, not a yearly release like Mango or Apollo, but is instead a coming update to Mango.

News today from ZDNet’s ever accurate Mary Jo Foley has shed even more light on what Tango will be, and how it will arrive. According to her sources, which are the best in the market, Tango is set to come in two parts.

The first Tango update, what she refers to as ‘Tango1,’ is a small update that will quickly expand Windows Phone into markets that are not served by Mango. Mango itself is a rather expansionary update, so Tango’s push into even more countries seems to outline a Microsoft strategy to put Windows Phone everywhere. Tango1 will likely build upon the additional language support that Mango is bringing to the mobile line.

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The second piece of Tango, innovatively called ‘Tango2,’ appears to be a continuation of Tango1, and will include even more language support alongside “fixes and new features.” Those updates may help Tango function with lower power handsets, lowering the purchase cost for the Windows Phone line in countries that are more price sensitive.

TNW Microsoft believes the above findings fit well with what we already know. The question now becomes, “When will Tango show its face?” Given how hard Microsoft is set to push Mango, I would put a dollar on Tango coming in early 2012, perhaps in sync with the timing that we saw for the NoDo update. That could be the launch time for Tango1, with Tango2 perhaps following Apollo’s late 2012 release, and coming in early 2013.

Of course, we don’t know anything for sure about when Tango will land, so until we hear more, stay skeptical.