Mark your Microsoft calendars: Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 launch dates revealed
Summary: Expect September to be a month of Windows Phone 8 handset reveals, and late October to be the official launch of the coming devices. — We Microsoft watchers already knew October was going to be a crazy month …
Context & Ripple Effects
July's whisper-date roundup for Windows Phone 8 has hardened into an official calendar: Microsoft confirmed this week that September belongs to handset reveals and late October to the actual device launch, with Windows 8 itself going live in late October alongside the RT-powered Surface on October 26. The story travelled widely, picked up by eight outlets including The Verge, VentureBeat, and Mashable within a day.
The timing matters because the market context around the date is unforgiving — IDC's August read was that Windows 8 will not revive traditional PC growth this year, while Microsoft and RIM are fighting over third place behind the dominant mobile leaders.
First-order effects
- OEMs building Windows Phone 8 hardware now have a fixed window: September for reveals, late October for shelf availability, which sets Nokia's and other partners' announcement schedules directly.
- Microsoft's own Surface RT lands October 26, effectively day-and-date with Windows 8, making Microsoft both platform owner and first-party hardware competitor at launch.
Second-order effects
- With IDC expecting no lift in traditional PC sales from Windows 8 this year, vendors' holiday-quarter bets shift toward tablets and touch devices, concentrating their entire marketing spend into the same late-October window.
- RIM faces a rival whose phone and desktop ecosystems go live simultaneously, tightening the squeeze in the third-place mobile battle it is already contesting with Microsoft.
Third-order effects
- A synchronized OS-plus-tablet-plus-handset launch is Microsoft's bid to enter mobile as an integrated ecosystem player rather than a licensing vendor — if the pattern holds, future Windows cycles will be judged as whole-platform events, not PC upgrades.
- Whether carriers and OEMs commit shelf space against entrenched iOS and Android devices in that narrow window becomes the real test of whether a third viable mobile platform can hold retail distribution.
The trend: Microsoft's fall 2012 calendar marks its attempt to compete in mobile through synchronized desktop, phone, and tablet launches rather than incremental OS releases.