Windows 8 To Be Released In October 2012

dkd903 writes "Microsoft has been very secretive about the next version of its Windows operating system. After the success of Windows 7, everyone is very interested in the next iteration – Windows 8. A few leaks have been the only source of news about Windows 8 till now. However, a slip up from Microsoft Netherlands has put the release date in October 2012."

Comments

Surely they'll come up with a marketing name...

[e065c8515d206cb0e190]

that can match past successes, such as Vista, Zune, or Kin.

Better translation

[Barryke]

Verder werkt Microsoft uiteraard aan de volgende versie van Windows. Maar het zal nog zo'n twee jaar duren voordat 'Windows 8' op de markt komt.

Correctly translates to:

Furthermore Microsoft is ofcourse working on the next version of Windows. But it will take about two years before 'Windows 8' will arrive on the market.

I'm dutch. The translation was engrish, i thought this might help.

Re:NT 7.0 or NT 8.0?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Try a phased roll-out to 20,000 desktops - with unknown compatibility in 4,000 departmental desktop applications.

You can see the regression issues that make a desktop roll-out of ANY new OS a suicidal risk for any IT organization of size. The answer they are grasping for? Consumerization of IT. Bring your own device, and we'll police connection/identity and document policy.

You see, people have already been bringing in their own Macs and Androids for a couple of years now - and "self servicing". This is how the IBM PC showed up next to the 5250 terminal, 25 years ago.

 

Re:NT 7.0 or NT 8.0?

[DrgnDancer]

Mostly because of three things:

1) Many companies (and governments) have glacially slow approval processes for new OSes. My facility would like to move to Windows 7, but there's still no official DoD hardening and approval process for it. Since we're planning to jump over Vista straight to 7 we're on XP till we get official blessing.

2) A *staggering* number of companies still need IE6 for various internal web apps. A little hunting will turn up companies still selling solutions that require IE6 right now, as XP runs down the clock on even security support. Someone must be buying this crap, though I can't imagine who or why. I don't know which is worse, that Microsoft made IE6 so standards incompatible that this happened in the first place, or that they then immediately reversed course and left all these standard's non-compliant apps hanging. (Though at this point the companies still using them have no one to blame but themselves, XPs retirement schedule has been public for a good long time).

3) A lot of companies just don't feel the need. XP has the distinction of being probably the first Microsoft OS that really worked so well that there's not a lot of compelling reasons to upgrade it (besides its support clock running down). DirectX 10 is mostly unimportant to business, and the rest of Vista and 7's improvements can often be matched by just installing 3rd party software on XP (which many businesses did long before 7 was available). There's some really nice functions in the newest version of AD, but so far MS hasn't allowed XP-AD integration to break.

I suspect the only thing that will actually force companies to upgrade will be XP finally becoming completely unsupported. Even then I wouldn't be shocked to see a lot of companies jump to Vista instead of 7 on the theory that it's been around longer and is therefore better supported.