It’s been a busy week for Microsoft. First the company rolled out two tablets, surprising quite a few punters and even industry leaders. Now Microsoft is shedding light on its upcoming Windows Phone 8 operating system.

We have to admit we have a soft spot for Windows Phone, although few if any Fudzilla hacks use it. As one punter put it, it is the best mobile OS you never tried and we love Redmond’s less-is-more approach, which proves that you don’t need a quad-core to make a proper smartphone.

However, Windows Phone 7.x was plagued with several quite annoying limitations, it could not handle multi-core chipsets, high resolution screens or support microSD storage for that matter. With Windows Phone 8, Microsoft aims to change all that. Next generation Windows will rock multi-core chips, high res screens up to 1280x768 or 1280x720 and they will also support microSD.

Unlike Windows Phone 7.x, the new OS will not be based on the Windows CE kernel. It will be based on the Windows 8 kernel, so it will be more closely related to your desktop than your old Mango phone. The upside? Microsoft hopes to attract more developers by basing the new OS on the Windows 8 kernel, but the downside is that old Windows Phone 7.x devices have been rendered incompatible with the new OS.

However, there is still some good news for WP7 users. They will receive one last update, dubbed Windows 7.8. It should deliver a few Windows Phone 8 features to older devices, but from then on Microsoft will stop supporting older iterations of the OS.