14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is reportedly close to wrapping up the last development milestone of Windows 8, leaving it to focus entirely on the upcoming Beta of the operating system. Windows 8 is currently in the Milestone 3 (M3) stage of the development process, according to third-party reports, since the software giant has not confirmed any details about the evolution of the platform.
M3 is also the last Milestone release that the company will put together, after which work will shift to building the Beta branch.
According to Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft might wrap up M3 sometime by the end of June 2011. The software giant is bound not to breathe a word on the status of Windows 8 M3, but as soon as the milestone is finalized, all teams will move onward with the coding for the Beta Build.
There’s no guarantee that the Windows team will indeed wrap up Windows 8 M3 next month, so the report needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
Earlier this month, I heard that the Windows team was close to starting the work on the first Windows 8 Beta Builds.
Now, it’s clear that Windows 8 is still quite far from the actual Beta development milestone, especially if one takes into consideration the public Beta Build which is reportedly set for release in the fall of 2011.
But starting coding work on the Beta does not mean that the actual Windows 8 Beta Build will be finalized and offered anytime soon.
From what I’m hearing, there are quite a few Windows 8 branches being developed in parallel. The number is quite large, and it might surprise some, but since I’m skeptical as to whether there’s any truth to it or not, I’m not going to mention it.
It’s not uncommon for work to be dispersed among the builds, and as such it could be possible for development efforts to happen in parallel even on two successive milestones, before one of them is wrapped up.
According to sources close to Microsoft, it appears that Windows 8 Build 8000 held some importance as to the start of the Beta work, but I was unable to confirm this.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt to mention that Windows 7 Beta was Build 7000, and there’s always the possibility that the Windows team will apply a similar strategy with Windows 8. Then again, it’s very hard to tell with Microsoft keeping mum on Windows 8’s development.
I guess that we’re all bound to find out some more details on Windows 8 next week at the upcoming demo of the OS.