It’s Official: Windows 7 For the Holidays

By  |  Monday, May 11, 2009 at 10:38 am

At this point, anything else would have been a heckuva surprise, but now it’s formal: At its Tech Ed conference today, Microsoft announced that it plans to ship Windows 7 (and Windows Server 2008 R2) in time for the holidays. Until now, the company had just been saying that it planned to get Win 7 out within three years of Vista’s release, which could have left it arriving in early 2010.

I’m not at Tech Ed, but Microsoft’s press release doesn’t seem to define what it means by the holiday season. The company is presumably confident that it can get Windows 7 onto new PCs and into stores by late November. But with the Windows 7 Release Candidate seemingly in good shape and no further major pre-release versions planned, you don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to speculate that Microsoft really thinks it can get the OS out in time for students heading off to college this fall to buy Windows 7 laptops, and that it’s saving that news to spring on us later.

If Windows 7 does indeed ship months before Microsoft’s self-imposed deadline, it’ll be good news–assuming, of course, that the version that ships is robust, and well-supported by applications and devices. It’s going to feel odd being deprived of one of the tech world’s most reliable guffaws, though: the notion that Windows. Always. Ships. Late.

 
3 Comments


Read more: , ,

0 Comments For This Post

3 Trackbacks For This Post

  1. Its Official, Windows 7 will be here for the holidays | OS Attack Says:

    […] Check It Out> Microsoft Press Release via Technologizer […]

  2. Windows 7 in 2009 or how a nobody predicted it first — Shooting at Bubbles Says:

    […] shopping season – Ed Bott Windows 7 on Track to Hit This Holiday Season – Brandon LeBlanc It’s Official: Windows 7 For the Holidays – Harry McCracken Windows 7 Ship Date and Office 2010 Tech Preview – Steve Clayton It’s […]

  3. Windows 7: Coming to a PC Near You on October 22nd | Technologizer Says:

    […] all:&nbspNews Back on May 11th, Microsoft confirmed what was already pretty obvious: Windows 7 would ship for the 2009 holiday season. Today, it got specific and said that the OS would show up on new PCs and in retail upgrade boxes […]