Microsoft to launch Windows 8 in October

Microsoft will wrap up Windows 8 this summer, according to a report by Bloomberg on Monday. Computer and tablet makers, known as OEMs for "original equipment manufacturers," will have Windows 8-powered PCs and tablets ready to sell in October, Bloomberg said. The Windows 8 operating system will come in two flavors: Windows 8 for traditional PCs and business-grade slates and tablets, and Windows on ARM (WOA) for consumer tablets. Microsoft declined to comment on the Bloomberg report, which cited what the news organization called "people with knowledge of the schedule," who asked for anonymity. Neither a summer wrap-up or an October sales launch would be a surprise: Microsoft finished Windows 7 three years ago this July and launched that OS on Oct. 22, 2009. New PCs went on sale at the same time, just as the holiday shopping season was getting into gear. Analysts have expected that Microsoft is shooting for a similar fall release of Windows 8, possibly in October, to follow in Windows 7's successful footsteps and avoid a repeat of the timing of Windows Vista, which missed 2006's holiday season when it fell behind schedule and didn't ship until January 2007. Microsoft has not disclosed a release date for Windows 8 but recently hinted that it would be this year. The release of Windows 8 Consumer Preview at the end of last month was a clue that a fall 2012 debut was in the cards. Microsoft released the first Windows 7 developer-oriented build at the end of October 2008, offered a public beta in January 2009, and pushed the final version onto shelves the third week of October 2009. Although Windows 8's Consumer Preview appeared about seven weeks later in the calendar than the Windows 7 beta -- at the end of February compared to the latter's early January -- Windows 8's Developer Preview launched a month earlier than Windows 7's: in mid-September 2011 compared with October 2008. Those differences might make the two schedules a wash. But at least one analyst wasn't buying the idea that October was a done deal. "No, I don't think it's realistic," said Michael Cherry, an analyst with Kirkland, Wash.-based Directions on Microsoft, a research firm that tracks only Microsoft's moves, in an email reply to questions Monday. "While the Consumer Preview shows progress from the Developer Preview, it is still extremely rough, and many things are broken." Cherry ticked off several problems he has encountered with the Consumer Preview, including an inability to link a Microsoft Bluetooth keyboard with a Windows 8 PC and the Metro-style Mail app not connecting to an Exchange server. Although Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft's top Windows executive, made his reputation by keeping Office releases on schedule, Cherry said a stubbornness to ship Windows 8 on time, come hell or high water, might be the wrong move. "I think it would be a mistake if they allowed themselves to be date-driven," Cherry said. "One of the worst things that could happen, in my opinion, would be to ship a product for the holidays that disappoints in any way." Microsoft, other analysts have said, is gambling big on Windows 8 -- "betting the farm," in the words of one -- because the upgrade's emphasis on touch and tablets could alienate enterprise customers. Although Microsoft needs to address its tablet problem -- it has nothing to compete with Apple's popular iPad, which entered its third generation last week amid record-setting sales -- analysts have argued that the touch-centric operating system won't give businesses many reasons to upgrade their desktops and notebooks. That leaves tablets. If Microsoft gets it wrong with Windows 8 there, it will fall even further behind Apple, and to a lesser extent, Google and its Android operating system. Perhaps irreversibly behind. Cherry used a different schedule from Windows 7 to bolster his belief that an October release Windows 8 was overly optimistic. After looking at the Consumer Preview, and noting that Microsoft has not publicly showed WOA except in heavily scripted demos, Cherry remained leery of an October 2012 ship date for the two editions. "[These things] only add to the feeling this is still on a RC [release candidate] schedule three months after Consumer Preview, and RTM [release to manufacturing] three months after that," said Cherry. "And that is an optimistic schedule in my mind." In Windows 7's case, that operating system reached RC -- where the code is considered finished but gets one last preview to trap bugs -- in early May 2009 and made RTM in late July. RTM is a crucial milestone because that's the point at which code is offered to OEMs for prepping new PCs, to third-party developers to run final tests on new and existing applications, and to other hardware vendors to ready peripherals that will coexist with the OS. Windows 7 reached RTM just over 11 weeks after the operating system met RC, which showed up about 16 weeks after the public beta. If Cherry's mock beta-to-RC-to-RTM schedule becomes reality, Microsoft would issue a Windows 8 RC at the end of May and the RTM at the end of August. That last milestone would be approximately a month later on the calendar than Windows 7, which could in turn push Windows 8's on-sale date into late November. According to Bloomberg, the same sources who claimed that an October on-sale date was in the works also said that Microsoft would host an event early next month at which it would brief industry partners on Windows 8's release schedule and marketing efforts. Anti-Windows 8 momentum has been building since the Consumer Preview was released, with much of the commentary focused on the dual -- and dueling -- traditional Windows desktop interface and the new "Metro" app-like look and feel. If Microsoft uses the same week and day to unveil Windows 8 as it did three years ago for Windows 7, it would host a launch event on Oct. 25.