Windows Server 2012 to hit RTM in the first week of August

During Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference, the company officially announced that Windows 8, the company’s next generation operating system, will reach Release to Manufacturing (RTM) first week of August. Now, Microsoft reveals that Windows Server 2012 will hit RTM at the same time.

“Windows Server 2012 will be a focus of attention at the event, of course, and it is nearing final release. In fact, at the conference we are announcing that Windows Server 2012 will be released to manufacturing in the first week of August. The code will be complete and we will begin delivering it to our hardware partners. Then, the product will be generally available to customers worldwide through multiple channels in September,” Microsoft announced via a blog post. Windows Server 2012 will hit RTM in the first week of August and general availability will be in September. Microsoft also revealed that Windows Server 2012 pre-release builds were downloaded over 500,000 times.

Microsoft believes that Windows Server 2012 is the biggest and most transformational server release they have ever had. “It’s not just the great advances we’ve made in storage, networking and virtualization. What’s most transformational is the change of identity. In past, we always viewed Windows Server as an operating system for a single server,” Microsoft adds. Not anymore. Windows Server 2012 will now be viewed as a cloud operating system.