Microsoft's long-term schedule for Windows 8 tablets was given support Thursday night with an apparent leak of the timetable. Sources backed the notion of a Windows 8 public beta being ready at the end of 2011 and a finished version of the OS nearly a year year, in time for the "back-to-school season." The timing given to Bloomberg wasn't more specific, but it would be consistent with the third anniversary of Windows 7's Release To Manufacturing (RTM) and Microsoft's preference for three-year gaps between OS releases.
