It's widely understood that the next major release of Windows Phone — codenamed Tango — will significantly expand the platform's support for internationalization, in part by driving the hardware requirements downmarket. Another key aspect of that will be expanding language support. That already happened to a degree in 7.5 Mango, but it currently stands at just 35 languages — good enough to match iOS, but not good enough for a company like Nokia that has market presence in virtually every country in the world. New rumors out of a developer event in India pegs Tango at some 120 languages, well over three times as many as Mango's total count and likely enough to blanket the majority of the globe in (likely lower end) Windows Phone hardware.
At the same event, speakers apparently also suggested that Windows Phone would be gaining support for C++ code in a future release, lower-level programming likely designed to appease game developers who need to eke peak performance out of the hardware. Android offers the NDK (Native Development Kit) for exactly this reason, so it wouldn't be a big surprise to see Microsoft do the same.
Interestingly, the original source of the information — WP Sauce — has allegedly been asked to pull it down by Microsoft and has complied, lending credence to the talk that Tango will be big news for Windows Phone fans in the furthest reaches of the world. With the platform's overall market share still just a drop in the bucket, pushing downmarket seems wise; hopefully, Apollo will keep things interesting on the high end as well.
