Cloud Computing: First Windows 8 Products Due Around October: Bloomberg
March 20, 2012
Windows 8-based PCs and tablets will start coming out around October ahead of the Christmas rush, according to Bloomberg. Work on the new operating system, which will run on both Intel and ARM chips, is supposed to wrap up this summer.
Unidentified sources told the news service there would be less than five ARM devices at the debut, three of them tablets, and more than 40 Intel machines. Microsoft has tightly controlled the number of ARM widgets and set rigorous quality-control standards for its first mass market push outside Intel’s orbit, it says it was told…
Those devices will face the mighty Apple juggernaut. Apple’s iPad and iPhone also use ARM chips. Gartner has predicted that iPad’s dominance will drop from something like 66% now to 46% in 2015 when Microsoft should have 11% of the market.
Microsoft has yet to set an official Windows 8 release date – the ARM version hadn’t even beta’d yet like the Intel version has – but the timing Bloomberg suggests is obviously imperative to Redmond.
Microsoft is supposed to stage an event next month for its partners and spell out its release strategy, giving more timing details.
Microsoft is aiming to have both the Intel and harder-to-develop ARM versions available at launch.