A senior Microsoft executive has mentioned that the company’s next generation operating system, Windows 8, will hit the market in September 2012. This comes only a month after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had said the nearly the same thing, only to have his statement retracted by a spokesperson for the company.
When it comes to the Fall 2012 release date, “Let’s make that assumption,” says Dan Lewin, Corporate Vice President for Strategic and Emerging Business Development.
“We will be in market — if you look at the crystal ball and just say what happened in the past is a reasonable indicator of what our forward looking timelines will be and just speculate — we’ve made the point about having a developer conference later this year, and then typically we enter a beta phase, and then in 12 months we’re in the market, so let’s make that assumption,” Lewin said.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also openly discussed the next version of Windows and officially referred to it as “Windows 8” and that it would launch in 2012. Microsoft later issued a statement retracting Ballmer’s words and calling them a “misstatement.” According to Microsoft: “It appears there was a misstatement. We are eagerly awaiting the next generation of Windows 7 hardware that will be available in the coming fiscal year. To date, we have yet to formally announce any timing or naming for the next version of Windows.”
Levin also refers to a developer conference, which we know to be the BUILD conference scheduled to run from Spetember 13th to September 16th in California. We are expecting to see a beta release of Windows 8 during the BUILD conference.
It was ironic how CEO Steve Ballmer’s statement was being pulled by a mere company spokesperson, lets see what happens with Lewin’s statements.
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