Microsoft Corp. announced at its Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles, California, that it is retiring its Windows XP operating system and the support for the operating system will end in three years.

Kicking off the four-day WPC 2011 event, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said 640,000 partners have made Windows 7 the fastest-selling operating system in history and indicated that with future versions in development, partners can be confident in their bets on Windows for phones, PCs, servers and the cloud.

Speaking before nearly 15,000 partners from around the globe, Ballmer said more than 400 million Windows 7 licenses have been sold in less than two years, and that the best way to prepare customers and prospects for the future is to move all customers to Windows 7.

"One way we can help our partners and our customers get the most from their Windows experience is to help them move off of Windows XP. As of today, customers have 1,000 days until support for Windows XP ends. Windows XP served us well, but in the ten years since it launched, the world has changed. It's time to retire Windows XP and move to Windows 7 to take advantage of the last decade of innovation in areas such as security, performance and more natural, intuitive interface," Erwin Visser, senior director for the Windows Commercial Product Marketing team at Microsoft, said in Microsoft's official blog site.

200 million PCs on XP

Echoing that point, Tami Reller, corporate vice president and chief financial officer of Windows and Windows Live, emphasized that Windows 7 is the path to Windows 8. Noting that there are still more than 200 million PCs running Windows XP, which was launched in 2001, Reller told partners they have a real opportunity to deliver more value to customers in the short term and "set them up for the future." In providing an overview of the road ahead with Windows, Reller told partners that despite the record growth and success of Windows 7, there is tremendous Windows 7 deployment opportunity now and well into the future. "We see a future with a heterogeneous enterprise environment of Windows 8 devices and apps alongside Windows 7 PCs and apps," she said.

"At the heart of our ability to deliver Windows 8 is the flexibility Windows has consistently shown; its ability to adapt over time is what ensures Windows will continue to be highly relevant in the future," Reller added.

Windows Intune

According to Visser, Microsoft and its ecosystem of partners are committed to helping every customer move to Windows 7 by providing the deployment tools and resources they need.

"One way users can stay updated on the latest version of Windows is through Windows Intune, our cloud-based PC management and security service that includes the benefit of upgrade rights to Windows 7 Enterprise as well as future versions of Windows," Visser said.
"Since the Windows Intune launch in March, we've seen positive reception from partners and customers looking to standardize and manage their PC environments. Windows Intune has proven to be the comprehensive solution they need, giving them cloud services for PC management and security and upgrade rights to Windows 7 Enterprise (and future versions of Windows) from a single, simple subscription."

7 copies of Windows 7 per second

"Our previous statement of 7 copies of Windows 7 sold a second continues to hold true," Brandon LeBlanc, Windows Communications Manager at Microsoft, said in a post.

"We continue to see excellent momentum for Windows 7 as well as Internet Explorer 9. According to Net Applications as of June 2011, Windows 7 is now running on 27.13% of all PCs worldwide. And of PCs running Windows 7 in the U.S., Internet Explorer 9 is now the most popular modern browser. Internet Explorer 9 is running on 17% of Windows 7 PCs worldwide."

Windows 8

Corporate Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Windows and Windows Live Tami Reller highlighted that Windows 7 is the path to Windows 8.

"We believe that in the future, we will see enterprise environments running a combination of Windows 8 devices and apps alongside Windows 7 PCs and apps," LeBlanc stated.

Microsoft said last month that Windows 8 is a reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface. A Windows 8-based PC is really a new kind of device, one that scales from touch-only small screens through to large screens, with or without a keyboard and mouse.

Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president, Windows Experience, said that Microsoft said that Windows 8 will have these features:
* Fast launching of apps from a tile-based Start screen, which replaces the Windows Start menu with a customizable, scalable full-screen view of apps.

* Live tiles with notifications, showing always up-to-date information from your apps.

* Fluid, natural switching between running apps.

* Convenient ability to snap and resize an app to the side of the screen, so you can really multitask using the capabilities of Windows.

* Web-connected and Web-powered apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript that have access to the full power of the PC.

* Fully touch-optimized browsing, with all the power of hardware-accelerated Internet Explorer 10.

Windows 8 apps use the power of HTML5, tapping into the native capabilities of Windows using standard JavaScript and HTML to deliver new kinds of experiences.

Windows 8 will be running on System on a Chip (SoC) processors.

Desktop and mobile computing

Microsoft Windows continues to be the top operating system for desktops and laptops. However, it hasn't penetrated the mobile computing market.

Apple's iPad has captured more than 80% of the tablet market and the tablet runs on Apple's own iOS operating system. Google's Android system, has already grown to become the largest smartphone operating system with 36 percent of units sold in the first quarter, compared to only 27.4% for the Symbian, and 3.6% for Windows-based devices, according to Gartner Inc.

Microsoft though hopes to expand its market share as it has inked a deal with Nokia to provide the Windows 7 operating system for phones of the Finnish handset maker. The first batch of Nokia Windows-based phones is scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of this year.