On July 13, 2011 Microsoft came forward with good news for its customers. According to the company, any computer which is presently using Windows 7 will be eligible to upgrade to Windows 8. The announcement has been made by the company as a part of its regime to keep the hardware requirement level lower for the future version of Windows.
According to Microsoft, it has already sold more than 400 million licenses of Windows 7 but still the usage of Windows XP is nearly double to that of Windows 7 across the globe. Till date, Microsoft has shown two previews of Windows 8 and has promised to show the next one in September. Thus, it’s a business strategy of Microsoft to convince the businesses and consumers to upgrade as soon as possible to Windows 7 whilst keeping in mind the launch the Windows 8 soon.


Tami Reller, the collective VP and CFO for Windows, proclaimed at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, “Two-thirds of business PCs are still on Windows XP. Moving these users to Windows 7 is crucial and urgent work for us to get after together.” The conference allows Microsoft the chance to convince its partners on how to make money together.


Most probably, Windows 8 may be released in 2012 so that the businesses don’t lose their money. Microsoft is suggesting its users to upgrade from XP to 7 so that they can easily upgrade to Windows 8 later.
According to Reller, “Whether upgrading an existing PC or buying a new one, Windows will adapt to make the most of that hardware.” He also added that Windows 8 is for “the hundreds of millions of modern PCs that exist today and for the devices of tomorrow.”


The Windows 8 version would be compatible for touch screen tablets as well as PC’s. In the Consumer Electronic show which occurred in January this year, Microsoft announced its support to ARM architecture which is a lower powered chip for mobile phones. Reller quoted, “Windows 8 is a true re-imagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface.” Thus, the systems will require 1 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM as well as 16 GB disk space and DirectX 9 graphics to run Windows 7.


In the BUILD Conference held at in Anaheim, CA from Sept. 13-16, announced that it would come up with another technical preview of Windows 8 in September. Reller focused on the conference and told that it will showcase how the modern hardware and software developers can take advantage of Windows.


Windows 8 will showcase a start screen built of applications, represented in the form of “tiles.” Microsoft believes that its tiles will be much useful than the icons of Apple as they can be easily used for getting information on a variety of features like weather and the state of an application.


Reller quoted, “IE10 in Windows 8 will deliver fully optimized touch browsing with all the power of hardware acceleration.”


Currently, 27% of internet connected computers use Windows 7 while 51% use Windows XP, according to Net Applications.