Windows 8 Access Will be Available by Late October according to Microsoft

Finally Microsoft officials confirmed that Windows 8 on track to be released to manufacturing by the first week of August and to be accessible by late October.

According to the statement of the corporate vice president of Windows, Windows 8 is on track to be released to manufacturing the first week of August, and will be available by late October 2012. The statement is also with a connotation that Windows Server 2012 will be released to manufacturing by the first week of August. But the server bits will not be available to customers until September. 

The business users (volume licensees with Software Assurance) will have access to the final Windows 8 bits "as early as the beginning of August."

The October general availability date has been rumored for months. A late July RTM date for Windows 8 has been rumored for a while. Microsoft has sold 630 million Windows 7 licenses to date, up from 600 million at the beginning of June.

The Windows team's @BuildWindows8 account on Twitter recently repeated that the official guidance was that as of May 31, Microsoft execs had said to expect Microsoft to enter the "final phases" of the RTM process "in about two months," assuming all was seen as progressing well by Microsoft and its partners.

Microsoft officials said in late June that the newly announced Microsoft Surface PC/tablets running Windows RT would be available at the time Windows 8 is generally available. So that means the ARM-based Surfaces will be out by then, one would expect.

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