Speaking on Tuesday at the Seoul Digital Forum in South Korea, Ballmer predicted up to 500 million users will have Windows 8 by next year, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Calling Windows 8 “the most important piece of work we’ve done,” Ballmer said the burgeoning cloud computing space would be controlled by a few major platforms, including Windows, Apple’s mobile and desktop environments, and “various forms of Linux” — a thinly-veiled reference to Android.
The Windows 8 Consumer Preview is currently available for download, and a more refined “Release Preview” is scheduled to arrive early next month. Tablets running the touch-centric OS are expected to debut during the 2012 holiday shopping season.
Windows 8 will almost certainly sell well in Microsoft’s traditional laptop/desktop market, as nearly all new Windows PCs will come with Win 8 preinstalled.
The tablet space, currently dominated by Apple’s iPad, is another story, however. Redmond misjudged consumer demand for tablets, and is desperately trying to gain a toehold in the market.
The good news for Microsoft is that Android-based slates, aside from Amazon’s Kindle Fire, have yet to resonate with either consumer or business users. If Windows 8 fulfills its promise as a mobile OS, it may soon become a player in the tablet market.
Contact Jeff Bertolucci at Today@PCWorld, Twitter (@jbertolucci) or jbertolucci.blogspot.com.