PC Pro is reporting that, in a briefing at Microsoft"s London headquarters, Microsoft"s Windows OEM Manager, Laurence Painell has told there will be a couple of additional, quite major announcements regarding Windows 7 in the coming weeks.
Painell claimed 99% of the top 200 software titles are already compatible with Windows 7 and that most of the applications compatible with Windows Vista will be compatible with Windows 7. Painell said that Microsoft is aware that the majority of businesses are still running Windows XP and that Microsoft will help companies to continue running Windows XP software on Windows 7 desktops through Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation (MED-V) software, but also added:
"There was some misconception that I [as a business] could skip Vista and go to Windows 7, and all those incompatibilities would go away. That"s not the case."
If we are indeed getting some major announcements then we can expect some major upgrades for OEMs and if we are lucky enough, we can also expect the Windows 7 release dates. We earlier reported about the Windows 7 Upgrade Program being shifted to June 26, 2009 from June 28, 2009. According to the new schedule, end users who purchase PCs pre-installed with Windows Vista between the dates June 26, 2009 to January 31, 2010 are eligible for a free Windows 7 upgrade.
Neowin has already predicted that select testers can expect the RC Escrow build of Windows 7 later this April and a public RC release at the end of May. A page appeared earlier on Microsoft"s TechNet website hinting May for the release of Windows 7 RC.