Microsoft will webcast the opening hour of its Windows 8 and Surface RT launch Thursday, the company said today.
The keynote, which starts at 11:15 a.m. ET, is the only part of the day-long event in New York that will be publicly broadcast. Throughout the day, Microsoft will show off Windows 8, its own Surface RT tablet, and new hardware from some of its partners to the press and industry analysts.
Unlike Apple, which rarely webcasts its presentation -- although it did yesterday, for only the third time ever, to
tout the iPad Mini -- Microsoft broadcasts its events more frequently.
For example, the Redmond, Wash. company webcast the opening of its September 2011 BUILD conference, when it
introduced Windows 8.
Microsoft has already strutted Windows 8, the Surface RT and OEM (original equipment manufacturer) PCs, tablets and hybrids elsewhere. On Monday, for instance, it hosted an event in Shanghai. Steven Sinofsky, the top executive of the company's Windows division, participated.
