Yesterday at WPC in Houston, Texas, Microsoft’s Tami Reller Windows CMO and CFO announced that the golden version of Windows 8.1 would be made available to OEM partners in late August.
It meant that OEMs would start building and preparing devices with Windows 8.1 just in time for the holidays! This also shows steady pace of Windows 8.1 development, and we can suspect RTM bits of Windows 8.1 sometime in late August through various channels like MSDN, TechNet and Microsoft Connect. However, Microsoft has not shared any details for general availability yet.
In addition, Tami also shared some interesting facts about Windows 8 that 100 million licenses sold out to date, including 20 million enterprise evaluations and that Windows 8 has logged 60 billion hours of use. Following Tami, Jensen Harris showed off some of the new Windows 8.1 features including how Windows 8.1 works great on small-screen devices, new Reading List and Xbox Music app, much-improved integration of SkyDrive and new search search experience powered by Bing.
2 weeks ago, Microsoft announced the Windows 8.1 Preview for the general audience to try out — if you have not already, you can get the Windows 8.1 Preview update for Windows 8 or download standalone ISOs to check it out.
This is for now! Stay tuned for more details in coming months.