More info on the availability dates of Windows 8 for education

Overnight the Windows 8 team have given out more information on the availability dates for Windows 8, as well as letting the world know about the success of Windows 7 so far – with over 630M licences sold so far.

The key Windows 8 headlines were:

• Windows 8 is on track to Release to Manufacturing (RTM) the first week of August
  RTM is the point at which the product is 'finished' and goes off to the various manufacturers for them to start finalising it into their products, and to the factories for DVDs etc to be created for consumer products.
  
• Customers with Software Assurance will have access to Windows 8 as early as August
  This means that almost every single education customer in Australia (who have a Campus or School Agreement, or an EES Agreement) will be able to start installing and using the released version of Windows 8 in education next month!
  
• Windows 8 will be fully released (General Availability) by the end of October, in 109 languages across 231 markets worldwide
  This is the full consumer launch, which follows on from availability to our volume licence customers
  
• New Windows 8 and Windows RT PCs will be available at the same time
  Which means devices from our partner OEMS, as well as our little treat. 'Windows RT' PCs are the ones that will be based on the ARM chips, whereas 'Windows 8' PCs will be the ones using Intel-based chips.

The announcement was made at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, and you can watch the WPC keynote here

For more info, pop over to the Windows blog and read
'Upcoming Windows Milestones Shared with Partners at WPC'