Huge news out of Microsoft - Windows 7 is on track to be out in time for Holiday season 2009, and the RTM (release to manufacturing) will be in 3 months i.e. August 2009. 

Brandon LeBlanc at the Windows 7 Team Blog says that RTM will be in 3 or so months -

If the telemetry we receive from the Windows 7 RC meets our expectations in terms of quality, then we expect to hit RTM in 3 months or so. Again, check out Steven’s blog post on this process. If this happens, it looks like we’ll be able to have Windows 7 done in time for the holidays.

Steven Sinfosky at the Engineering Windows 7 Blog writes -

Delivering the highest quality Windows 7 is the most important criteria for us at this point—quality in every dimension.  The RTM process is designed to be deliberate and maintain the overall engineering integrity of the system.  Many are pushing us to release the product sooner rather than later, but our focus remains on a high quality release.

Ultimately our partners will determine when their PCs are available in market.  If the feedback and telemetry on Windows 7 match our expectations then we will enter the final phases of the RTM process in about 3 months.  If we are successful in that, then we tracking to our shared goal of having PCs with Windows 7 available this Holiday season.

This news was broken today at the TechEd conference in LA.

This is really big news. There are a few related snippets -

1. Office 2010 Beta will release in July 2009. It will initially be available to TechEd and MSDN subscribers. 
2. Microsoft Surface Service Pack 1 released today. 

As far as Windows 7 -

1. Microsoft is recommending teams that were testing Vista to start testing Windows 7 instead.  
2. It does seem like Microsoft is considering Vista a completely lost cause. 
3. I spent all day yesterday using the Windows 7 RC and its very polished. Also, IE8 is no longer troublesome.
4. August RTM hints at late October to late November general availability. Dell would probably be one of the earliest manufacturers to offer Windows 7 machines.
5. The US Holiday shopping season is considered to start November 1st so that would probably be the date Microsoft targets for General Availability of Windows 7.

You can get the Windows 7 Release Candidate at Microsoft.

Technorati Tags: windows 7, windows 7 rtm

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Filed under: Windows 7 News Updates