Windows 8 To Be Unveiled In September
I’m pretty excited about Windows 8, Microsoft’s next operating system. That does not mean that I’m perfectly happy with Windows 7, the company’s current operating system. Windows 7 is a great operating system that could be as successful as Windows XP, if it had the same amount of time at hand and a successor that bombed terribly.
From what I know currently, this will not be the case. Latest news tidbits indicate that Microsoft is making great development progress. The Redmond company plans to create first Windows 8 beta builds in this month, which would mark a big milestone in development of the operating system.
This gives Microsoft ample time to get the public beta version of Windows 8 right. Most experts believe that the company will release the public beta of Windows 8 during the build conference in September.
Mike over at Windows 8 News noticed that the Build homepage was recently updated with a revealing slogin: In 1995, Windows changed the PC. BUILD will show you that Windows 8 changes everything.
The two sentences give us two important pieces of information. First, Microsoft is going to show the operating system during the conference in all of its glory, and second, the company is likely to stick with Windows 8 as the operating system’s name.
It is very likely, but not confirmed, that Microsoft will release the beta during or shortly after the conference to the public. This falls in line with recent news that Microsoft intends to reveal the Windows 8 release candidate during the 2012 CES conference in January, and the Windows 8 RTM in April of the same year.
It takes between two and three months from there before the operating system becomes available on the retail market which would indicate a mid-2012 release of the operating system. Microsoft could obviously delay the release to match the October release date of Windows 7.
Here is a summary of the next development steps:
- April 2011: First internal beta builds of Windows 8
- September 2011: Public Windows 8 Beta during Build
- January 2012: Windows 8 Release Candidate
- April 2012: Windows 8 RTM
- July 2012+: Public Retail release of Windows 8
Got anything to add? Let me know in the comments.