Today we have some news to share around Windows 7 including answering what may be some of the “hottest” questions people have as we head toward General Availability (GA) on October 22nd.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Brad Brooks, Corporate VP for Windows Consumer Marketing, to talk about today’s announcements.

Announcing the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program & Windows 7 Pricing

Special thanks to Brad for taking the time to talk through these details with me. You’ll find a transcript of the video here.

As Brad discussed in the video, today we’re announcing details for the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program, pricing, and a special pre-order offer for select markets.

But first, I want to talk a little bit more about GA and the worldwide availability of Windows 7. We’ve really focused a lot of our efforts on getting the product out to as many people around the world as quickly as possible. OEMs will start shipping PCs with Windows 7 in all language versions beginning on GA, October 22nd.

And for our retail software, we’ve made significant strides in terms of timing. Gone are the days when it could take months for all language versions to be available. In fact – we’ve narrowed the gap to just over ONE week!

On October 22nd, Windows 7 will be available in the following 14 languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Chinese (Hong Kong).

Then on October 31st, the remaining 21 languages will become available: Turkish, Czech, Portuguese, Hungarian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Greek, Ukrainian, Romanian, Arabic, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Estonian, Slovenian, Hebrew, Thai, Croatian, Serbian Latin, and Latvian.

Windows 7 truly is a global release and I’m excited to be able to tell my international friends that when I say Windows 7 will be available for the holidays – I mean everywhere in the world.

But, you don’t have to wait until GA to get a new Windows PC. In fact, we know many people need that new PC sooner – for back to school specifically. And we have the answer for people who need a new PC now but still want to get Windows 7 and that’s the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program, which kicks off tomorrow, June 26th! Anyone who buys a PC from a participating OEM or retailer with Windows Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate on it will all receive an upgrade to the corresponding version of Windows 7 at little or no cost to customers. The Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program will be available until January 31st, 2010 – and is global! For more information on taking advantage of the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program, visit www.windows.com/upgradeoffer.

Another one of the most common questions I get is: how much will Windows 7 cost? Well, today we’re sharing these details.

For Windows 7, we are reducing the price on our most popular retail product for customers, the Home Premium Upgrade, by approximately 10% (depending on the market). In the U.S., this means a customer buying Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade will pay only $119.99 instead of the $129.99 being charged today for its predecessor.

Overall, customers will be paying less and getting more with Windows 7. This includes fun new features such as HomeGroup, Device Stage, Aero Shake, Snap, Peek, Jump Lists and our completely redesigned Windows Taskbar (one of my favorite new features in Windows 7 today). These new features make your PC simpler and much easier to use.

So here’s the low-down on pricing for Windows 7. The estimated retail prices for upgrade packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99
• Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99

And the estimated retail prices for full packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
• Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99

This means that Windows 7 Home Premium full retail product is $40.00 less than Windows Vista Home Premium today.

As Brad describes in the video, for Europe, we will not have a separate upgrade SKU for the packaged retail product versions of Windows 7 at GA. But we will be offering upgrade pricing on our full licenses to make sure that European customers who want to upgrade have the pricing options available in the rest of the world.

Finally, as a way of saying thank you to our loyal Windows customers, we are excited to introduce a special time limited offer! We will offer people in select markets the opportunity to pre-order Windows 7 at a more than 50% discount. In the US, this will mean you can pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium for USD $49.99 or Windows 7 Professional for USD $99.99. You can take advantage of this special offer online via select retail partners such as Best Buy or Amazon, or the online Microsoft Store (in participating markets).

This program begins tomorrow in the U.S., Canada and Japan. The offer ends July 11th in the U.S. and Canada and on July 5th for Japan or while supplies last. Customers in the UK, France and Germany, can pre-order their copy of Windows 7 starting July 15th and will run until August 14th (or supplies last) to ensure folks don’t miss out on this. Act fast if you want to be the first in line to get Windows 7 at this screaming deal! Note: The special low pre-order price will vary per country.

For more information on this special pre-order offer, click here.

I am really excited to be sharing these Windows 7 announcements with you today. Because of the great feedback we received from you, we are confident we are poised to deliver a great product this fall!

Simple, Clean and Easy To Open…

We approached the packaging for Windows 7 the same way we approached the product – by listening to what our customers told us they wanted: make it a simple clean design, easy to open, and reduce waste.

Simple Design

Customers told us they liked the big bold Windows logo and how it clearly communicates that it’s Windows 7. They like larger typefaces to make it easy to read. They also like the background colors for each edition that make it easier to differentiate between Windows 7 Home Premium all the way to Windows 7 Ultimate. In their own words, the “clean” design gives off a “fresh” feel.

Make It Easy To Open

We’ve reduced the number of elements in the package down to three: the plastic case, the paper sleeve, and a simple Getting Started Guide. The plastic case opens easily like a standard DVD case and it will have a single easy-to-remove seal at the top - and that’s it!

Reduce Waste

The plastic case protecting the Windows 7 disk is lighter and is recyclable. The packaging itself has a 37% weight reduction and the econometrics score has improved by 50% over it’s predecessor.

Essentially, the packaging is what customers told us they were most interested in picking up to learn more about Windows 7. We hope you do the same.

Look for the new Windows 7 packaging to hit this fall!

Today at HITEC (Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference) in Anaheim, CA, Sheraton Hotel & Resorts announced their plans to roll-out Windows 7 across their “Link@Sheraton” locations. I was able to chat with Mark McBeth who is the Vice President of IT for Starwood Hotels & Resorts (the parent company for Sheraton) to get some more details and insight into their plans:

Brandon LeBlanc: So tell me about the Link@Sheraton and your Windows 7 plans.

Mark McBeth: The Link@Sheraton is a social area in the lobbies of some of our Sheraton hotels that includes computers and technology resources for our guests. We’re working closely with Microsoft and will have Windows 7 available on the Link@Sheraton machines in select Sheraton locations later this summer – that’s before Windows 7 is even publicly available. What’s great about this arrangement is that our customers will be able to experience Windows 7, get a feel for some of the new features, and experiment with some of the applications we’ve developed in cooperation with Microsoft specifically for Link@Sheraton – all while being connected with the latest technologies. 

Brandon LeBlanc: How is this deployment impacting your IT Department on the back-end?

Mark McBeth: It’s allowing us to develop our knowledge base on Windows 7. We support 480 hotels across North America and the deployment at the Link@Sheraton locations is serving as our testing grounds for a broader deployment across our national infrastructure.  So it’s serving two purposes: customer satisfaction for our hotel guests, and hands-on experience with the OS for our IT Pros.

Brandon LeBlanc: What’s the general feedback you’ve received from your IT Pros on Windows 7 thus far?

Mark McBeth: From an IT perspective, we’ve received positive feedback on the performance and stability. For us, those are the very first things we look for in an OS for Sheraton. Stemming from the encouraging results we saw with our initial tests running Windows 7 on the Link@Sheraton machines, we expanded our current deployment to some of our production machines. We have about 40-50 machines at this point and once the general release comes later this fall, we plan to make Windows 7 our standard OS and begin to refresh our entire business operations environment. 

Brandon LeBlanc: What’s the best thing about the Link@Sheraton and Windows 7?

Mark McBeth: It's a competitive differentiator -- we're using the latest technology to help our customers get their work done or bring them closer to their families when they're traveling. The Link allows them to do this in the lobby area instead of in some far away corner like in many other hotels.  Plus, Windows 7 just works the way you want.  It makes the user experience simpler, faster, easier and more fun - some of the computers in our lobbies will even have touch screen capabilities available for our customers to try.

Brandon LeBlanc: Thanks for chatting with me, Mark – I look forward to hearing more about Sheraton’s deployment down the line.

Mark McBeth: Thanks, Brandon.

For more information on Windows 7 being deployed across select Link@Sheraton sites, check out the PressPass feature here.

I’ve been getting some questions about yesterday’s news regarding how we will be shipping Windows 7 without Internet Explorer in Europe.

I want to encourage people who have any questions about this to read this post on the Microsoft on the Issues Blog. This post is pretty thorough in explaining our plans for Windows 7 in Europe.

The European Commission has also posted a statement which can be read here.

Microsoft Hardware has a great set of products that work very well with Windows Vista and Windows 7. When Windows 7 hits stores this fall, Microsoft Hardware will release new software that will allow the current line-up of Microsoft Hardware products (mice, keyboards, LifeCams, gaming devices and notebook accessories) to take advantage of new capabilities being introduced with Windows 7 such as the new Windows Taskbar and Device Stage.

Microsoft Hardware will be releasing new software with a feature called Taskbar Favorites, specifically designed for Microsoft keyboards from Microsoft. This feature will give users a quick way to access the applications represented on the new Windows Taskbar in Windows 7. Taskbar Favorites will automatically map the order of applications on the Windows Taskbar to the “My Favorites” hot keys on a Microsoft Hardware keyboard such as the Digital Media Keyboard 3000. “My Favorites” hot keys are a series of buttons on the top of Microsoft keyboards (circled below).

And using Windows Flip, with the press of a button people will be able to see a live preview of all their open windows. This allows people to more quickly navigate between open windows and choose a desired application.

Also, all Microsoft Hardware products will be recognized and shown as actual images of the product when you open the Devices and Printers folder.

In the above screenshot, you will see that my Digital Media Keyboard 3000, Notebook Optical Mouse 3000 and LifeCam Show all show up with actual product images making it much easier to work with the hardware.

The final versions of the software for Microsoft Hardware mice and keyboard products, which will include Taskbar Favorites and Device Stage and Windows Flip support will be available June 26th at the Microsoft Hardware Windows 7 Web site. The final versions of the Microsoft Hardware software for LifeCam products will be available July 31st.

For more information, see this press release on Microsoft PressPass.

This is one of those posts where I’m truly excited to be writing. I get to tell you when Windows 7 will be on store shelves! According to input from customers and partners we’ve made a lot of progress with Windows 7.

Our milestone-to-milestone approach for Windows 7 is built on a great deal of feedback from customers and testers. This has been pivotal to the development of Windows 7.

I blogged a few weeks ago that it’s looking like we’ll have Windows 7 ready in time for the holidays.

Since then we’ve made enough progress to feel really good about announcing today that Windows 7 will be in stores beginning October 22nd.

I don’t know about you but I can’t wait to see Windows 7 sitting on store shelves!

Some people may not be able to wait for Windows 7 to arrive before having to order a new PC (like parents who are sending their sons or daughters off to school who need of a PC to take with them). Fortunately, there is no need to wait. Soon, customers will be able to take advantage of the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program. This program enables participating retailers and OEMs to offer a special deal to upgrade to Windows 7 for customers purchasing a qualifying PC. I’ll be doing another blog post about this program with a date and more details when we get closer to availability.

Obviously, Release To Manufacturing (RTM) is an important milestone on the path to GA. We anticipate that we’ll be able to make the RTM code for Windows 7 available to our partners sometime in the 2^nd half of July. We also expect to be able to make RTM code for Windows Server 2008 R2 available to our partners in this time frame as well.