Windows 8 Release Date Leaked to the Web, is It Real?
by Paul Lilly | Posted 01/28/10 at 08:33:17 AM
It seems like just yesterday we were putting on our cardigans and hamming it up with complete strangers at our Windows 7 party, and that's because it kind of was. And with Redmond's latest OS barely three months old, there's already talk of Windows 8, including a release date that was supposedly leaked to the Web.
According to news and rumor site Fudzilla, former Microsoft employee Chris Green drew up a chart detailing Microsoft's roadmap for future product releases. In it, he reveals the following release schedule:
From: leonsk [#2] 28 Jan 20:09 To: Cagey (KGWAGNER) [#1] 28 Jan 20:17
Does anybody really care? If by some chance it is correct then just more spaghetti code. Pity they could not learn from Apple and steal acquire some proven code.
From: Cagey (KGWAGNER) [#3] 28 Jan 20:23 To: leonsk [#2] 28 Jan 20:26
Judging by the time frame, it would seem they are going to take a page from Apple and start charging for service packs. Why give away SP2 when you can just increment the product revision number and sell the whole OS all over again? Plus, it'll look good to the "Software Assurance" fools who pay up front for stuff that may or may not ever be developed. At least over the course of a contract they'll get several "valuable" upgrades instead of several service packs that even the folks who didn't buy "Software Assurance" get for free.
From: Cagey (KGWAGNER) [#5] 28 Jan 20:51 To: leonsk [#4] 28 Jan 22:38
Look at all the years they let everybody ride XP. What did they put out - 5 or 6 service packs? Even if there's only 500 million copies of XP out there, and I'm pretty sure there's a lot more than that, at $129 per service pack like Apple charges that would add up to ~$64B for every revision. Plus, that would be real direct money, too, not token payments from OEMs like most of the OS sales are.
From: leonsk [#6] 28 Jan 22:41 To: Cagey (KGWAGNER) [#5] 29 Jan 0:50
That is indeed real money and as you pointed out, would be a sop to those subscription plan chumps. Hmmm, subscription plan ... how about the Patch Tuesday item, get some bucks from that one.
From: Cagey (KGWAGNER) [#7] 29 Jan 1:00 To: leonsk [#6] 29 Jan 1:29
I don't know how easily they could find a way to charge for their non-stop security breach repairs. That's sort of "warranty work", although they'll never call it that. Especially since the software is sold with the written caveat "Sold as is. No warranty expressed or implied".
From: dimbulb [#8] 29 Jan 10:16 To: Cagey (KGWAGNER) [#1] 29 Jan 10:54
I thought I read someplace that Windows 7 was Microsoft's last OS.
Wasn't that true? What's this Windows 8 stuff?
Over the years I've read that Vista was the last, that XP was the last.. I'm starting to doubt that all these articles are accurate but then again if Chris Green, a former Microsoft employee (no less), says so...well who am I to question Chris Green.. a former Microsoft employee...