Microsoft is taking the summer and upcoming fall of 2012 by storm

Frank Shaw, Vice President of Corporate Communications at Microsoft, published an interesting article on the official blog today. The post details how Microsoft has been running what appears to be a sprint with consecutive releases of Windows Phone updates, Windows 8 previews and the desktop OS recently hit RTM. Things are going well at Redmond, which is painting Microsoft in a completely different light to what consumers are used to.

The summer started back in June at E3 where Microsoft demonstrated SmartGlass, which will enable consumers to control their Xbox 360 via Windows 8 and smartphones, be able to stream media, and much more. The next big news for us was the Surface tablet and we believe these will be a hit should they be priced competitively with other Windows 8 OEMs, Android tablets and the iPad.

Joe Belfiore returned in San Francisco to unveil Windows Phone 8 (aka "Apollo") to the world and to showcase what was to be expected in the next release. It's just unfortunate that current and previous generation Windows Phones wont be eligible for any upgrades to Apollo, but Windows Phone 7.8 should keep owners happy until they make the move to the next level. You still with us? There's more.

Moving into July and we had Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer address nearly 16,000 partners at the Worldwide Partners Conference to discuss Windows 8 and other upcoming products, which is being billed to be the largest product and services launch in the history of software giant. Following this was Ballmer launching the customer preview of the new Microsoft Office, and if that wasn't enough Microsoft (in the same week) reported record quarterly and annual earnings. 

With the new Office, Outlook.com, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Visual Studio 2012, Xbox 360 / Kinect, Windows Phone 7.8 / 8 and Surface tablets to look forward to, I say: bring on the fall! Microsoft is looking to go big this year

Source: TechNet

Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.