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The Interactive Design Association (IxDA) just announced the winners of its first annual Interaction Award—and we’re thrilled that Windows Phone 7.5 has picked one up. Here’s the official award citation.

You love Windows Phone. The critics love Windows Phone. We love Windows Phone.

The question now is: How can we convince everybody else?

A few months ago we created the Suggestion Box for your feature suggestions for future versions of Windows Phone. Your passion and creativity has floored us. So now we’ve made a new place for your advertising and promotion suggestions. In other words, How would you get the word out about Windows Phone?

Good news—the Windows Phone Marketplace for apps and games is opening for business today in five new spots—Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru and the Philippines.

If you live in one of these countries, tapping on the Marketplace tile will soon (it might a few hours for all the lights to come on) put loads of great apps and games at your fingertips. One important caveat: Your phone will need to have Windows Phone 7.5 installed to access the new stores. (Look here for update instructions.)

I’m happy to report that the Windows Phone Marketplace is now officially open for business in 5 new markets around the world—Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, and the Philippines. We can’t wait to see all the great new apps you’ll create and publish for customers there.

There is more choice than ever when it comes to browsers today. This is a fantastic thing and we believe that choice makes the web better for all of us.

We build IE for customers who use Windows. IE9 is the browser designed to give Windows 7 customers the fastest, safest, and most private browsing experience – putting the focus on the thing that matters most – your favorite sites.

If you haven’t had a look at IE recently and are ready for change, here are some reasons we think IE9 might be the browser for you.

Last month, we talked about how IE9 had surpassed IE8 as the number one browser on Windows 7 worldwide.  This month that trend continues with IE9 growing worldwide on Windows 7.  New HTML5 experiences like Cut the Rope continue to show consumers what they can expect from a modern browser like IE9 - while developers have an HTML5 platform with IE9 that supports these rich, fluid experiences.

Like many of you, I’m itching to get my hands on one of those sleek and powerful new Windows Phones we’ve been announcing lately.

But which one to get? I’m not the most hardware-savvy high-tech professional (shhh!), so I’m sometimes uncertain what specs I should look at when I shop for a new phone (beyond “Does it look cool?” and “How’s the camera?”).

It’s been a while since we chatted about the hottest PCs on the market and I know you all miss it. So, this week, we are just talking about the different PCs, their different shapes and their variety of features.

Many of you know I’m a big music fan, so I got pumped when I heard about a new offer from Windows Phone for some free music. The new Gentleman Hall album has been free the last few weeks, but tomorrow is the last day to download! Head over to the Zune Marketplace on your PC, or just login at Zune.net to stream or download.

It takes 18-24 months to plan for and deploy a new operating system. If you haven’t started planning to migrate your Windows XP PCs to a modern OS, or if your migration plan have stalled here are some great tools to help you.

First of all, start by downloading  the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT). It removes the need for disc imaging, migrates your data in place during deployment, and (best of all) it’s free.

Some other tools to help make your move from Windows XP to Windows 7 easier include: