Microsoft has offered official confirmation that the Release Candidate of Windows 7 is no more than just two months away. At the same time, the Redmond company also admitted that the gold version of Windows 7 could be made available in as early as half a year. While Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, continues to keep a translucent lid pressed tight on all upcoming Windows 7 development milestone deadlines including RC, RTM and GA, Danny Beck, senior enterprise product marketing manager for the Windows Business Group, doesn't seem to have the same problem.

In the video embedded at the bottom of this article, you will be able to see Danny Beck disclose all estimative release dates for both Windows 7 RC and RTM. Just make sure to skip ahead to around 5:00. Just in case Microsoft will remove the video, I have taken the liberty to include a transcript of Beck's words below.

“This is the Beta of Windows 7, I have about 10 left, so if anybody didn't download a copy, and incidentally we had in excess of 100,000 downloads in Australia alone, and several million around the world of Windows 7, so we have customers and partners testing it today. I have 10 left, both 32- and 64-bit, send me an email and I'll send it to you. So we're in the Beta timeframe now. In a couple of months we're going to move in what we call the Release Candidate. That's the next iteration, it's a little bit more stable, less bugs in there. And then at some point in the next six to 12 months potentially, if all things considered equal, and we're happy with the product, we'll look to releasing it into the market for mainstream consumption, both for consumers and for businesses.”

Now, the video featuring Danny Beck was published on March 10, 2009; however, I suspect that it was actually shot in February, and not this month. Such a scenario involves Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) becoming available in April, but no later than May 2009. At the same time, Windows 7 RTM is planned for availability in August 2009, but no later than September. Still, Beck actually mentions mainstream consumption, and this could mean that Windows 7 will in fact be released to manufacturing much earlier, and that it will actually be available for purchase as early as August. But in all fairness, Beck also indicates that Windows 7's availability could be pushed back into 2010, although this is highly unlikely.




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