Microsoft Preparing Windows 8 Tablet Design Demos For June
According to a source at Microsoft, the company hopes to show off its new Windows 8 design for tablets by the end of its fiscal year in June.
This person claims that Microsoft is taking a more Apple-like approach to interface design this time around, and will also be using concepts from the "Metro" interface developed for Windows Phone 7. Ironically, that interface grew out of the Media Center UI that shipped with Windows XP back in 2004, but the Media Center interface was meant to be viewed from up to 10 feet away and controlled with a remote control, whereas Metro is meant to be used with touch screens.
This schedule is close to reports from ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley that Microsoft recently passed an internal marking point called "Milestone 2" for Windows 8. Based on past Windows development schedules, this would put "Milestone 3" at the end of July -- about a month after the company's 2012 fiscal year begins.
With Windows 7, Milestone 3 was the last internal milestone for the OS, and was followed by a public preview released at the Professional Developers' Conference in October 2008. The actual release of the OS to came about a year later.
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