Microsoft, on Wednesday, revealed the release date of Windows 8 consumer availability. Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live unit at Microsoft, during company’s annual sales meeting has stated Friday, October 26^th, 2012 for Windows 8 Release date.

The date was also updated on Windows 8′s Wikipedia page within minutes of the announcement.

Of course folks, this launch date will apply to both upgrades and installs on a new PC.

Not only will Windows 8 ship on partner devices in late October, but the company revealed that Windows 8 will, at the same time, ship in 109 countries and 231 languages.

So where does that leave Windows Phone 8? We’re betting we’ll see a similar release pattern and time-frame for their next mobile OS. Well, we’ll keep you guys updated as always.

Update: The official pre-release beta version of Windows 8 consumer preview was released in late February.

Source - Microsoft