Paul Thurrott is reporting that the next big release of Windows, code named “Threshold” is going to be Windows 9 and is targeted for April of 2015. In other news – Microsoft will be releasing Windows 8.1 Update 1 around BUILD 2014 (in April) alongside Windows Phone 8.1.
Windows 9 rumors have been flying around for a while, but at least now we may have a code name and some other possible information about it. Expect a lot more rumors (“The Start Menu is back!”) about the upcoming release, but take it with a grain of salt. Some may come to be true, but much of it probably won’t. Always nice to speculate and have fun with it, though.
In some ways, the most interesting thing about Threshold is how it recasts Windows 8 as the next Vista. It’s an acknowledgment that what came before didn’t work, and didn’t resonate with customers. And though Microsoft will always be able to claim that Windows 9 wouldn’t have been possible without the important foundational work they had done first with Windows 8—just as was the case with Windows 7 and Windows Vista—there’s no way to sugarcoat this. Windows 8 has set back Microsoft, and Windows, by years, and possibly for good.