Microsoft has just unveiled its latest OS which is Windows 8. Windows 8 is set to officially arrive in the market by October, 2012 and experts are predicting that this would help the growth of the PC industry.

Recent research studies have revealed that PC sales declined for this quarter as compared to the same quarter from last year. The research firm Gartner revealed that PC shipments fell to 87.5 million units for the second quarter thus showing a 0.1% decline as compared to last year. One of the reasons identified for this sales decline is due to the growing market for tablets and smartphones.

Despite this, there are experts who are predicting that the new OS from Microsoft which is Windows 8 would help boost PC sales once it has been released to the public. Microsoft has confirmed that the target release date for Windows 8 would be by October, 2012. Steve Ballmer, the Chief Executive for Microsoft was the one who announced the release date. Balmer further described Windows 8 stating that "It is simply the biggest deal for this company in at least 17 years. It's the glue, it's the foundation of everything Microsoft is built on." Brandon LeBlanc, the Communications Manager for Microsoft also confirmed that "Windows 8 is on track to release to manufacturing (RTM) the first week of August and will reach general availability by the end of October."

Windows 8 would be available in 109 languages across 231 markets worldwide.

Even if there are many experts that are predicting that Windows 8 could change the fate of PCs, not all companies are confident about this prediction. Acer, one of the world's 3rd larget computer vendor through unit shipments was one of these companies. Acer has trimmed down its original forecase that it will have 10% annual growth in terms of computers shipped. This predicted rate has been trimmed down to 0-5% growth. Kevin Lu, a spokesperson for Acer confirmed this news and stated that the company is rethinking their growth predictions down to 5 percent from an earlier 10 percent. Lu also mentioned that distributors and vendors are more cautious when it comes to building their stocks of products, ever since the launch of Apple's iPad.

Mikako Kitagawa, an analyst from Gartner revealed a possible explanation for this stating that "Uncertainties in the economy in various regions, as well as consumer's low interest in PC purchases, were some of the key influences."