When Will Windows 8 Be Released?
How are you enjoying Windows 7 so far? Liking the improved stability? Faster boot times? Basically thrilling to the fact it isn’t Vista? Well, hopefully you answered ‘yes’ to all of those, but have you already started pondering when Windows 8 will drop into our laps?
Due to the lengthy development cycle for major releases such as Windows 8, work actually started on the next iteration of the operating system before Windows 7 had even shipped out the door. The Codename Windows blog reported on April 15, 2009 that Microsoft was already looking for programmers to work on the next version. The bloggers found a job posting, that has since been deleted, that said:
For the upcoming version of Windows, new critical features are being worked on including cluster support and support for one way replication. The core engine is also being reworked to provide dramatic performance improvements. We will also soon be starting major improvements for Windows 8 where we will be including innovative features which will revolutionize file access in branch offices.
It isn’t a whole lot to go from obviously, but it at least gives us a starting point to work from. So, if we know as early as April Microsoft was working on it, lets take a look at the release dates for the last four mass market releases for some guidance on the time span between each:
|
OS Version |
Release Date |
|
Windows 98 |
June 25, 1998 |
|
Windows XP |
October 25, 2001 |
|
Windows Vista |
November 30, 2006 |
|
Windows 7 |
October 22, 2009 |
With the exception of the well-known five-year gap between Windows XP and Windows Vista, we’ve been on a fairly steady three-year release cycle. With Windows 7 coming out in Oct. 2009, it isn’t too hard to surmise that we are probably looking at Fall 2012 as the projected target date for Windows 8.
Does that mean it’s a definite? Of course not, this is all guess work on our part and nothing more, but isn’t it nice to at least have a ball park idea of when we’re all going to need to upgrade our computers once again?
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