The news comes from Janelle Poole, Microsoft's director of public relations, during the recent CES who had the following to say:
"We haven't talked about the release date and we generally don't," she said. "We are talking milestone to milestone, so for us right now we're talking about the next milestone being the Consumer Preview happening in late February".
Microsoft has previously titled public releases as 'Beta' which is followed by Release Candidates before the software is finally released to manufacturers (RTM). Does the names Developer Preview and Consumer Preview mean that Microsoft has a new naming strategy for their software releases? Paul even suggests that the Release Candidate may be titled Business Preview.
In any case Microsoft is entering a new era with an operating system which will span a wide array of hardware devices. Having a sound naming strategy is a good way to get public attention and promote marketing.