It may not have an official date you can pin on the calendar, but Microsoft has finally revealed the month and week Windows 8 will go on sale.
At the company's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto on Monday morning, corporate vice president of Windows Tami Reller announced that the new Windows 8 operating system would be released to manufacturing in less than a month - the first week of August, to be more precise.
That puts Windows 8 on track to be released to the public sometime during the last week of October - although Microsoft is vague on whether they're referring to the last full week (October 22-26) or the last three days (October 29-31).
For now, it's no matter: Windows 8 fans have been speculating and now they have a more precise timeframe to witness the bold new desktop and tablet OS parade across 231 markets worldwide, where it will be available in 109 languages.
"Windows 8 is simply the biggest deal from our company in at least 17 years," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer boasted during this morning's keynote address. "It's a huge opportunity for our partners, and a very big deal for Microsoft."
Microsoft previously announced that most Windows XP, Vista and 7 users will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for a mere $39.99, available as a downloadable installation when the OS debuts in October.
Redmond also took the opportunity to talk up the outgoing Windows 7, which has racked up an impressive 630 million licenses sold since its debut on October 22, 2009 (and counting). Will Windows 8 hit those lofty heights? Time will tell…
Source : ign[dot]com
