The
Corporate Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Windows, Tami
Reller, while speaking at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) has
revealed that the code for windows 8.1 will be finalized and passed to PC
manufacturers by late August.
She
mentioned that the current windows 8 has logged in 60 billion hours by users
and over 100,000 Windows 8 apps have been released on the Windows Store. She added
that Windows XP support will be ended in 273 days time to allow transition into
Windows 8.1. The time consumers will be able to use the new operating system
was not released but it is expected to be later in the year.
“This means
OEMs will be able to get the RTM bits and begin preparing devices with Windows
8.1 just in time for the holidays! We’ll have more details to share in the
coming months for consumers and other customers on how to get Windows 8.1. As
you have heard, Windows 8.1 is an update that refines the vision of Windows 8”
Brandon LeBlanc, Microsoft Communications Manager, stated in a blog post.
Windows 8.1
has come with some features that are absent in Windows 8. It has been optimized
to work well on smaller screens (tablets) and in the landscape mode. The start
button is also back after it conspicuously went missing in Windows 8. The new
Windows search which is powered by Bing was also demoed.
Microsoft’s
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Steve Ballmer added in the WPC that Microsoft has
moved from just being a software firm to a devices and services company. “Windows
has always been more a device than a piece of software; it defined a class of
device called the PC,” he said.
“We need
our partners to come with us in this journey,” he added. “We build experiences
that help people get stuff done.”
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Windows 8.1 will be released to PC manufacturers in August