At today’s Windows 8 Store preview, Windows Web Services VP Antoine Leblond announced that a beta of Windows 8 will be released in late February 2012, indicating that previous reports of a public beta in February were correct.
The beta will launch with the new Windows 8 Store on-board, with just free applications included; Leblond mentioned that app submissions would be “by invite only.” The event was wrapped up without any other details of the Windows 8 public beta, so we assume that, as Microsoft are gearing up for a release, that this public beta will be much more user friendly compared to the Preview released at BUILD.
So, now we all must eagerly await “late February” next year to get our hands on a proper beta version of Microsoft’s next operating system. It will be interesting to see just how many of the recently leaked features end up in the Windows 8 beta; only time will tell.