Those hints we saw earlier have turned out to be correct. Microsoft today confirmed that it will delay the NoDo Windows Phone 7 update to the second half of March. In a blog post, Eric Hautala, Windows Phone 7, General Manager, explained:
We have the next update waiting in the wings. It delivers copy and paste, better Marketplace search, and other key improvements.
But I believe it’s important that we learn all we can from the February update. So I’ve decided to take some extra time to ensure the update process meets our standards, your standards, and the standards of our partners. As a result, our plan is to start delivering the copy-and-paste update in the latter half of March.
Hautala goes on to stress that the delays in deploying NoDo will not the deployment of future updates. In particular, it stresses that Mango, the upcoming major update expected to deliver IE9, Silverlight run-time and HTML 5 support, Far Eastern language support, improved multitasking, and more, will not be delayed as recent rumours have suggested.