14 DAY TRIAL // Yes, the successor of Windows 7 made its first appearance at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on January 5th, 2011, but the fact of the matter is that Microsoft didn’t say all that much about the operating system. Here is a summary of what the software giant did say, right from the source:
“Microsoft announced that the next version of Windows will support System on a Chip (SoC) architectures including ARM-based systems from partners NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.
“Intel and AMD continue their work on low-power SoC designs on the x86 architecture that fully support Windows, including support for millions of x86 applications worldwide,” the company revealed.
And that’s about it, leaving users with a range of big unknowns. In fact, all questions related to Windows 8 have gone unanswered.
For example, is the Windows 8 moniker still in play, or had Microsoft dropped it altogether? The company only referred to the successor of Windows 7 as the “next version of Windows.”
No codename, no nothing. And certainly no references or hints related to Windows 8.
Then there’s the matter of the progress Windows vNext made in terms of the development process.
Speculation indicates that Windows 8 is yet to hit Milestone 2 and that it will graduate to M3 in the first half of 2011. But there no confirmation of this from the software giant.
It’s clear that close company partners are already testing Windows 8, and you can count NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Intel and AMD among them, but who else? How far along is the development process?
And then, of course, there’s the matter of a timetable for the next iteration of Windows, or better said lack thereof.
The Redmond company has yet to share its plans with the public as to the deadlines for major milestones such as the Beta, Release Candidate and the RTM (release to manufacturing).
Various sources claim that early adopters could get a Beta by the end of 2011, with some noting that a release might be possible closer to mid-2011.
There is some consensus among third-parties pegging Windows 8’s RTM and general availability for 2012, but again, there’s not even an approbatory nod from Microsoft on this.