All that rampant speculation and rumors about Microsoft’s plans for its consumer products will come to an end on January 21st. On that day Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Xbox Head Phil Spencer, and Windows leads Terry Meyerson & Joe Belfiore will take to a stage at Microsoft’s headquarters to reveal what the company has planned for Windows 10. That’s the operating system Microsoft plans to launch next year for notebooks, desktops, tablets, phones and the Xbox One.
Microsoft announced the coming press event over at its Blogging Windows site earlier today. The event appears to be an all day session for the media. People interested in what Microsoft has to say will be able to stream the keynotes from the event. Presumably, that’s when we’ll hear from Nadella, Spencer, Meyerson and Belfiore.
With Spencer speaking, it’s likely that we’ll hear something about the future of Windows 10 on the Xbox One. In late September Microsoft confirmed that Windows 10 would be the one operating system running across its entire portfolio of devices. Xbox One runs a bit of Windows 8 today, but it has a custom interface and other changes.
The version of Windows 10 available for users to test for free today is a Technical Preview, a way for Microsoft to get some early feedback on its ideas and nail the mouse and keyboard experience. Already it includes Windows Store apps that can run in the Desktop, auto suggestions for snapping apps for easier multitasking, a new Start Menu, support for MKV files and built-in Bing search. Videos of Cortana, the Windows Phone personal assistant, have also surfaced in the last few weeks.
All About Microsoft is reporting that we’ll see the other parts of the equation at this event, mainly Windows 10 for phones and tablets. One Windows Store will unite all of Microsoft’s consumer experiences and convertibles will have something that sits in between the Start Menu and the Start Screen that dominates Windows 8.1 today. A final release of Windows 10 in all its forms isn’t expected until the second half of 2015.
