Windows 8 will NOT be out January 7th 2013... Here's Why

It's been reported by MicrosoftFeed that Windows 8 will be out on retail shelves on 7th January 2013.  NeoWin have said that "None of this information is verified or is confirmed but is speculation from a reputable individual who, in the past, has provided solid information and leaks."

Let me explain why Windows 8 will NOT be out in shops in January 2013.  Windows 7 was released to manufacturing in October 2009, but even this was too late for the important, nay critical, Christmas holiday sales period for PC manufacturers.

Windows Vista was released to manufacturing at the end of November 2006 and didn't hit retails stores until the end of January.

On both occasions Microsoft were heavily criticised by the press and by their hardware partners, I cannot overstress just how important this holiday sales period is to hardware manufacturers.

There's also the back to school / college sales period in the autumn (fall) and several people including tech blogger Paul Thurrott have been saying that they believe Microsoft will want a Summer 2012 release so that their hardware partners can get PCs in stores for this critical sales period as well.

Quite simply I find it impossible to believe that Microsoft will repeat the mistakes of the past unless something disasterous happens.

Steven Sinofsky, the Windows chief, will no doubt have a good idea of when he wants Windows 8 to RTM but that date will certainly not be set in stone as has been reported by the Russian website Wzor.net, which is where this information has come from.

It's understandable that people are excited about Windows 8, but will be a much tougher sell to get people off Windows 7 than it was to wean people off Windows XP.  Microsoft simply cannot afford to miss these two important sales periods this time around and I sincerely believe they won't.

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