Speculation swirls around Microsoft’s plans for Windows

15 Jun 2021

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The company is ending support for Windows 10 in 2025 and later this month will be announcing ‘significant updates’ to the operating system.

As Microsoft prepares its big announcement for Windows later this month, there’s a great deal of speculation around what exactly the company has planned.

Those rumours took on a new dimension when it was revealed that Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 in October 2025, 10 years after the operating system was released.

The news was first reported on by tech podcaster Paul Thurrott and later reported by CNET. Microsoft now lists 14 October 2025 as the end date for support for Windows 10’s pro and home editions. The company just rolled out an update to Windows 10 last month.

It gives some indication as to what Microsoft may be plotting for its flagship operating system.

On 24 June, Microsoft will be unveiling some new products and updates at a press event where it is expected that a new version of Windows of some kind will be revealed to the world.

What shape that operating system takes remains to be seen. Notably in 2015, when Windows 10 was released, Microsoft referred to it as “the last version of Windows”, suggesting this version of the operating system would be the permanent foundation moving forward, with updates and iterations continuously built upon it rather than new versions.

At Microsoft’s Build conference last month, chief executive Satya Nadella said that Microsoft was planning “one of the most significant updates of Windows of the past decade”.

The company recently shelved plans for a new iteration of the OS called Windows 10X, which creates more speculation around what exactly will be announced at its event later this month. There’s plenty more speculation that it will simply be called Windows 11 after all.

Windows still accounts for a large majority of the desktop operating system market globally.

Jonathan Keane is a freelance business and technology journalist based in Dublin

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