It took a team of local university students five months to develop software to send educational data to the most remote areas globally via radio waves and to win the national 2010 Microsoft Imagine Cup.

Team OneBeep from the University of Auckland, took the national title following a 15-minute presentation from four finalist teams before a seven-judge panel on Friday evening at the University of Auckland business school.

Microsoft’s latest mobile phone operating system software (pictured above and below) will make its first appearance in New Zealand on an LG handset, scheduled for release through Vodafone by the end of this month.

The touchscreen, Windows Mobile 6.5-based LG GM 750 model ($699; below right) is available exclusively through Vodafone..

More than 50,000 New Zealanders have downloaded and registered for the beta version of Microsoft’s Windows 7 to be officially launched later this month.

Microsoft’s Ben Green said a record number of businesses and individual consumers had downloaded the software onto their PCs, of which there are about two million throughout the offices and homes of New Zealand.

Mr Green said the amount of people who had tested the new software and provided feedback on it and further suggestions for development was “very positive.”