You may have already heard the latest news from the Microsoft HQ but if you haven’t it has been the announcement of Windows 10. No, not Windows 9.
So this is it, the successor to Windows 8.1 and your main question may be “What happened to Windows 9?!” Well it was announced that Windows 9 would be the next incarnation of the Microsoft Operating System but only for a very short period of time.
So what happened to 9?
The main difference between the two announcements was the where Windows 9 was set to be released for desktop, laptop and tablets, Windows 10 is set to become the new system for all Microsoft devices including Servers, Desktops, Phones and even the Xbox.
What’s new from Windows 8.1?
At this point, not a lot. Current announcements have mentioned very few new features. The buzz at the moment is that Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for Windows 8/8.1 users and also Windows 7 but only within the first year of it’s release, this hasn’t been confirmed yet by Microsoft and some have said that it will be a subscription service like Office 365.
Other news is that Cortana will be making an appearance off the phone and across any device running Windows 10 and finally the end of Internet Explorer. The age old web browser is being replaced with what is currently named Spartan, although it would seem this is only a project name.
So why a new system then?
Windows 8 never really took off as well as Microsoft may have hoped. The introduction of their new Metro layout set to replace the desktop was though to be only really useful on hardware with a touch screen. Also the loss of the start menu proved to be a real problem with many Windows users, which thankfully for them returned in Windows 8.1.
Microsoft seems to hope that with Windows 10 they can restore faith in their operating system as figures show that very few business have made the move from Windows 7 to Windows 8/8.1.
When Can we expect this?
Dates at the moment for a full Windows 10 release are October 2015 but this will possibly change as we get closer to the full product but it’s set to coincide with the smaller release of Office 2016 which we will have more on as it’s release