Microsoft has officially invited members of the press to join in on September 30, 2014 “to hear about what’s next for Windows and the enterprise“. The event will be held in San Francisco and is widely expected to heavily feature the future of Windows by focusing on the next version of the operating system. The official invites have started to land in the mailboxes of the invited elite today, with invitees expecting to be part of an in-depth discussion about the company’s plans for Windows 9, led by Joe Belifore and Terry Myerson.
It shouldn’t really come as a great surprise that Microsoft has announced this event so soon after we started to see leaked screenshots and videos of what’s purported to be Windows 9. In addition to providing an official preview of the next version of Windows, the event is said to have a targeted focus on power users as well as enterprise customers. The purpose of the event will be to allow those users to come together in an official forum to view what Microsoft have in store for the software, as well as potentially get their hands on a first “Windows Technical Preview” build.
We already know from the plethora of leaked screenshots and videos that Microsoft has been working on introducing a number of new features into Windows 9. The addition of a dedicated notification center seems to have been greeted with applause, as does the new Start Menu and virtual desktops feature that has been talked about in great detail over the last few days. If the event does feature the introduction of a Windows Technical Preview as predicted, then it’s expected that Microsoft will continue pushing changes to that build for users to evaluate and feedback on until it’s deemed to be ready for public release at some point during the next calendar year.
As well as the introduction of the aforementioned features it’ll be interesting to actually see the unreported changes that make an appearance throughout Windows 9. Microsoft is said to be making a large number of relatively minor tweaks to the user-interface of Windows, including simplifying a lot of native icons and task bar visuals.
As always, we will be paying close attention to the event, and will bring updates on everything that’s announced.
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