Paramount to Rock the Mobile Apps Market on Windows Phone 7

Jack Black fans, your time has come – as long as you own a Windows Phone.

Paramount Digital Entertainment, a division of Paramount Pictures, announced today the availability of a brand new “School of Rock” app in the Windows Phone Marketplace that lets smartphone owners watch the full movie plus menus, bonus features and experiences not available on other mobile platforms.

“School of Rock” is the first of 10 Windows Phone 7 movie apps to be made available – other titles such as the Ben Stiller vehicle “Zoolander,” the action-packed feature film “GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra” and the documentary “Waiting for Superman” will soon be available, with more titles to come.

The new apps were designed using Microsoft Silverlight multimedia technology, which gives Windows Phone 7 smartphone owners the ability to create custom clips and view the movie with pop-up trivia powered by the ‘Scene It?’ movie trivia game.

In addition, the Silverlight-powered apps have a Movie Info feature offering users the ability to identify actors, objects, music and places in the movie, while providing rich, contextual information such as bios, descriptions and even maps to the locations.

Read the official announcement about the Silverlight Enhanced Movies as well as this Windows Phone Developer Blog post for further detail on how developers used Silverlight to create the new movie apps.

Windows Phone Marketplace currently offers 4,000 quality apps and games for Windows Phone 7, with more than 18,000 developers already registered and working to keep the app pipeline full.

News of the new apps follows closely on the heels of Microsoft’s announcement that the next version of Silverlight will be available in beta in the first half of 2011, followed by a full release of the next-generation multimedia technology by the end of next year.

The agreement with Paramount is the second partnership announced regarding Windows Phone 7 this week. Microsoft announced Monday that nationwide auto insurer GEICO has agreed to support Windows Phone 7 as a corporate smartphone for its 24,000 employees so they can make calls, send e-mail, set up business appointments, attend meetings and keep track of vital corporate data all on the go.

GEICO also announced the launch of a new Windows Phone 7 app called GEICO GloveBox that enables customers to pay bills, access insurance policy information and even call for help when they get stuck in sticky situations on the road.