Microsoft is gearing up for staggered Windows 10 releases
For months we have speculated on an official release date for Microsoft Windows 10, and we have not been the only ones.
Finally, during a recent interview with the Register, conducted during the Build 2015 event in San Francisco, Corporate VP of operating systems Joe Belfiore, commented on such speculations, reminding everyone that Microsoft has not released any official date yet, for a very good reason which can be summed up in a single quote from Belfiore himself:
“...We are on track for the summer but you should have in mind this notion of Windows as a service...”
Windows as a service has become one of those buzz-phrases that get thrown around a lot, but Belfiore has a point: there is more to it than marketing. Windows as a service is a very well defined concept, and an objective that goes beyond what most users have come to expect from Microsoft, prior to Satya Nadella taking the reigns of the software giant.
“There are devices and features that will come not on the launch date but following it. Our main focus is to kick off with a great launch on the PC. Other devices, phone, HoloLens, Xbox, Surface Hub, will be staggered, probably not on the same date as the PC.”
The objective, as Belfiore confirmed further during the interview with the Register, is to upgrade as many Windows 7 users as possible, to get all Windows users on the receiving end of a plethora of products and services, simply unavailable outside the Windows 10 ecosystem, and only partially within reach of Windows 8.1 users. Xbox will be one of those services, which, while it’s true that Xbox One is already available, will receive a substantial update following Windows 10’s opening of the floodgates.
Official release dates are no longer relevant...
... when the priority is on the stability and features of a platform that will simply keep updating itself overtime, in a similar way as Android or iOS, rather than following the formerly monolithic trend of the pre-Nadella era.
Windows 10 is no longer about a product that must be the best that it can be, the moment it’s out, but rather a service that is geared on improving itself through the feedback of users, in the same way as Windows Insiders have already been doing.
When asked about how is Microsoft prepared to address mass upgrades worldwide, Belfiore responded that “...The Windows Insider Program is a giant dress rehearsal for that. We’re finding the highest volume of software and hardware issues, and then we’re working with partners to address it.”. Belfiore further elaborated, commenting that while Microsoft won’t “... get to 100 per cent”, they will get to a reasonably high percentage of worldwide systems capable of accepting the upgrade.
This high expectation is justified by the fact that the majority of systems running Windows 7, are most likely compatible and ready to run Windows 10, while offering a reasonably fluid experience.