Steve Ballmer announced today that all Professional Developers Conference attendees will receive a free Windows Phone 7 device.

Ballmer took the stage this morning at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington to talk about Windows Phone 7. “Windows Phone is a different kind of phone. It looks different, it works different,” Ballmer explained. “People have very individual tastes in phones”, Ballmer added.

The announcement of free Windows Phone 7 devices for all attendees was met with a cloud round of applause. Ballmer then ran a commercial for Windows Phone 7 and explained “Man are we going to pump and thump” for Windows Phone 7. Devices went on sale on October 21 in Europe and Microsoft is planning to release a number of devices on November 8 in the United States. The launch in Europe was overshadowed by a lack of devices and delays to pre-orders.