It must be Friday because we have yet another stupid rumor going around that we can expect Microsoft to ship Windows 8 by January 7, 2013.
The rumors originated out of a Russian blog called Wzor and with some help from GeekSmack we get a translated version of the post that outlines the roadmap as they see it for Windows 8. While some of what is outlined make sense the last claim in the outline that Windows 8 will hit the shelves on Monday, January 7, 2013 is just ridiculous.
As Tom Warren at Winrumors pointed out the idea that Microsoft would once again launch any major version of Windows at the first of the year is stupid. Microsoft learned their lesson in this regard with Vista and I don’t believe that they have any intention of ever repeating that mistake again.
The other thing that this so-called roadmap is missing is the way that Microsoft is changing when it comes to how they release information about a product development cycle. We saw this with Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 where in both cases we had very little information to go on before they were actually releasing stuff.
As well Microsoft, contrary to the past, is actually releasing products sooner than they officially said they would which we saw with Windows 7. In the lead up to the release of Windows 7 the popular consensus in the tech blogosphere was that it would be a mid 2010 release, with some suggesting early 2011, but there were a few that suggested late – meaning just prior to Christmas season of 2009.
Very few actually suggested that we would see it sooner than that – Mary Jo Foley comes to mind as well as myself – and as it turns out Windows 7 was RTM at the end of July 2009; and in consumer’s hands by October 2009.
So how does this bode for Windows 8 – the version that Ballmer has declared the company’s riskiest bet yet; especially considering the recently announce move to have Windows 8 running on ARM processors.
Well take into account that Microsoft likes a two to two and half year release cycle for Windows and the fact that Windows 7 was released in 2009 you can be most definitely assured that any claim for a 2013 release time frame is brain dead.
Now given that Windows is having to be revamped to run on ARM; which would appear to anyone paying attention is coming along quite nicely, as well there are rumors of a dynamic user interface that will change dependent on which platform it is installed on, I don’t believe the normal 2 year cycle will play out.
If it was to play out it would mean that we would need to start seeing milestone builds, or early betas, hitting the first round of testers very soon because a 2 year cycle would mean delivering a final RTM version by late fall. I don’t believe we will see any betas until that time with a RC release in the early spring of 2012.
Should this be the case then we could see a final release hitting the shelves around late summer which would put it within a 3 year release cycle; which would make sense given the incredible changes that appear to be coming to Windows.
But 2013? Get it a rest.
