Microsoft Windows 9 Release Date is still unveiled, but it will be nicknamed Threshold according to sources close to the story. However it will probably launch as 9, since Microsoft will want to leave some distance between its new release and the Windows 8, 8.1 failed OS updates.

ZDNet reported. "If all goes according to early plans, Threshold will include updates to all three OS platforms (Xbox One, Windows and Windows Phone) that will advance them in a way to share even more common elements."

"Windows 9 is being developed without the help of Steven Sinofsky, former President of the Windows Division at Microsoft, who left the company after the release of Windows 8 in Nov. 2012. Microsoft is reportedly taking this opportunity to start a new "vision" and era for Windows," the LatinPost reported.

"Don't expect anything that grandiose, but the Windows team believes it needs to hit a happy middle ground between the KGB-style secrecy of the Sinofsky camp and the freewheeling 'we can do it all' days that preceded that," Paul Thurrott said. In a post on Winsupersite.com

According to critics, Windows 8 is "tanking harder than Microsoft is comfortable discussing in public, and the latest release, Windows 8.1, which is a substantial and free upgrade with major improvements over the original release, is in use on less than 25 million PCs at the moment."

That's a disaster, says experts and 'Threshold' needs to pave a middle ground for more than a billion traditional PC and appeal to users of new computing devices.

Threshold needs to be what Windows 8 is not.

There's strong indications that Microsoft may follow Apple and offer the Windows 9 for free.