Microsoft is gearing up to showcase Windows 7 for the first time in 2008, and the company is planning to do so to a global audience. According to Tim Sneath, Microsoft Client Platform Technical Evangelist, the Redmond  giant is planning to introduce the next iteration of the Windows client at the Professional Developers Conference. Scheduled to take place October 27-30, 2008, in Las Vegas, PDC2008 will be an event largely focused on Windows, and the conference where Microsoft plans to give the world its first taste of Windows 7.

“The soul of PDC is still Windows, and this year more than most, Windows is a dominant theme. We’ll unveil Windows 7 to the world for the first time this year, and there are some exclusive surprises for conference attendees that mean you’ll be frustrated to miss out on being at the PDC in person. Although we’ve not yet unleashed the full set of tens of Windows 7 breakouts on the session planning tool, you can be sure that this will be a very significant part of the overall event,” Sneath revealed.

Speculations indicate that the Redmond company is planning to deliver at least a preview build of Windows 7, a release following Milestone 3, with the first Beta reportedly planned for December 2008. Microsoft has failed to officially confirm any such scenario. While indicating that Windows 7 Bulds will be in fact available at PDC2008, Sneath failed to mention whether any of them would actually make it into the hands of participants or whether a broader release is in the making.

“We showed off multi-touch and there were a few other hints, but otherwise all you have to go on is rumors and mostly faked Photoshop renderings of what folks think Windows will look like. I’ve been running Windows 7 on my developer workstation in the office for some time now, and I think folks are going to like what they see. Among other things, we’ll be running compatibility labs at the PDC so you can bring your application and test it on Windows 7 builds,” Sneath added.