Microsoft's Windows 8 will launch for general availability on October 26, and CEO Steve Balmer is more confident than ever that about the operating system's future. With the Surface RT launching the same day, and the Windows Phone set to release on October 29, the tech giant has an eventful holiday season planned.
In an interview with the Seattle Times, Balmer attempted to put the Windows 8 launch into perspective.
"You know, Windows 95 was certainly the biggest thing in the last 20 years until now. I think Windows 8 certainly surpasses it. It's a little hard to compare things like the founding (of the company) and the introduction of the first popular PC and the system that popularized it, but it's at that scale."
The CEO reassures the Seattle Times that the new OS will be a revolution of Windows rather than an evolution.
"We're trying to really re-imagine the world from the ground up with Windows 8...And then people orient their development schedules around Windows 8 and its new properties and attributes."
When asked about the upcoming Windows phones, Balmer states, "We've got a big challenge in front of us. We're a very small player, but we have a different point of view in terms of user experience. We've got great cloud integration with the rest of the Microsoft world, which a lot of people participate in."
He concludes, "So I think our point of view on user interface, the great work that our hardware vendors are doing and the integration with Windows should help ratchet us up."
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