Windows 8 to emerge late 2011/early 2012

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer made it publicly known at a conference in Japan that Microsoft would be picking up its preparations for the next generation of Windows later this year. Steve Ballmer claimed that we would be seeing the rise of Windows 8 on a variety of form factors, Slates, tablets, mobile handsets, laptops and desktop computers.

Although Steve Ballmer gave little else away about the next generation of windows OS, widely accepted to be windows 8, it is clear Microsoft is not looking to milk its position in the desktop and laptop market but expand into the mobile computing market and take advantage of these new Tablet and slate PCs. However, it is still not yet known whether this signifies a change in the approach of Microsoft towards operating systems.

Another thing to take note of is that Microsoft is now looking to decrease the time between releases of new operating systems. Whilst there were 6 years between Windows XP and Windows Vista , there were only 2 Years between Vista and 7. It looks like there will also be a similar time frame between 7 and 8 even with the success of Windows 7.

The start of the windows 8 launch is expected to be signalled with the release of the Windows 8 phone operating system late this year.