Windows 8 To Debut Next Week?
Written by Alan Monday, 23 May 2011 07:32
Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky, the head of the Windows division, will be speaking next week at the All Things Digital conference. Several sources are reporting that he will show off a Windows 8 tablet, likely running on an ARM processor.
The ARM processor is used in most tablets and many smartphones, so it’s a huge market that Microsoft will need to make themselves a part of. There are tablets available that don’t run on ARM, and support Windows 7 (see our ExoPC review), but they are few and far between. Microsoft introduced touch features in Windows 7, but they are apparently building on that in version 8.
Microsoft has previously shown off new products at the D conference, so there’s no reason to think that they won’t have something up their sleeve this year as well. We have always been hearing that a public beta of Windows 8 would be coming this fall, so seeing a public debut doesn’t seem to be a stretch. And, of course, we have seen leaks of recent build like 7850 and 7955. There’s no evidence that Microsoft has intentionally leaked these build to gain hype, but it’s certainly a possibility.
It’s likely, based on reports, that we won’t see an actual Windows 8 release until the second half of 2012, but rumors persist that a tablet version will be available sooner.
