Microsoft sent out invites to members of the media on Thursday announcing a pre-launch event in New York City on October 25th for both Windows 8 and the Windows RT version of its Surface tablet. In a new post on the official Windows blog, Microsoft announced it will also have a live stream of the event for people who won't be able to attend.
The blog post also mentions some interesting, if very vague, statistics about the pre-launch interest in Windows 8. It states:
Across all the milestones we’ve announced for this reimagined version of the world’s best-selling operating system – Windows 8 is the most widely used and tested pre-release product we’ve ever delivered. Across every audience, Windows 8 has been downloaded and used by more people than Windows 7 during the same period. A billion hours of feedback telemetry has been collected from all our pre-releases combined.
Microsoft didn't offer any specific numbers on the downloads and users of Windows 8 for its pre-launch period. Microsoft released the first pre-release version of Windows 8, the Developer Preview, in September 2011. It launched the Consumer Preview in late February 2011 and launched the Release Preview in late May.
Research firm Net Applications, in their latest update on PC operating system market share, said their statistics showed that .33 percent of PC owners were using Windows 8. That compared to 1.64 percent of PC owners who used a pre-release version of Windows 7 a month before it officially launched in 2009.
Source: Official Windows blog | Image via Microsoft
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