Yesterday (August 1st 2012) Microsoft announced that Windows 8 had been released to manufactures. This means it's out of beta! They also announced general availability (aka the day you'll be able to buy it) as being October 26th 2012.
Read more here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/08/01/releasing-windows-8-august-1-2012.aspx
Josh M. Bryant is currently a Director of Technical Product Management at Tanium where he builds products that help customers overcome the challenges of managing very large scale computing environments. Prior to joining Tanium, he was a Premier Field Engineer at Microsoft specializing in Microsoft Exchange Server, and then later a Cybersecurity Architect specializing in Compromise Recovery.