As has been mentioned in plenty of blogs before, Windows Phone 7 will not support a the traditional experience of multitasking applications. With the exception of certain bare Windows CE devices, multitasking in PDAs and Phones has never really been like the desktop experience and that's okay. I don't expect it to act the same. Basically, the normal multitasking paradigm on these devices is that the app is sent to the background and another app comes to the foreground. It works really well in Windows Phone Classic (aka Windows Mobile) and Android. The Apple iPhone takes a different approach. Each app must save its state and exit when it is 'sent to the background' except the approved built-in Apple apps. Windows Phone 7 copies this approach, because apparently emulating Apple is the way to win a market (this has worked wonders for Zune, apparently).
To be fair, the WP7 approach is a bit more flexible. First, apps aren't necessarily closed when put in the background, but they are paused. Second, apps can request permission from Microsoft to be allowed to continue to operate in the background if they need to. That actually could be a decent model, as not all apps need to continue to run in the background, but this all hinges on Microsoft allowing you to run in the background if you need to. That's not a good place to be when you are trying to get investors to believe in your new cutting edge piece of software for this new device. By a single Microsoft employee's whim alone, your entire app could be neutered. Great.
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