"Today is a milestone for us in terms of the huge investment and the big innovation going into the next major version of windows and all of the complementary products," Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told delegates at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Seattle.
"We've never had this [beta release] synchronized in this way before. We think that is a great way for us as to seeing how they all work together and for customers as there comes the time to roll these things out."