“The last test version of Windows 7 has reached a wide audience and is now believed on track for a late October release, putting Microsoft’s last cards on the table as it prepares to square off against Mac OS X Snow Leopard,” Aidan Malley reports for AppleInsider.

“As part of a staggered launch that will see the public get the release on May 5th, Microsoft early on Thursday morning published the release candidate for Windows 7 to those in its developer network,” Malley reports.

“Unlike with Windows Vista and earlier pre-release versions of Windows, Microsoft doesn’t plan to deliver a second release candidate. The OS giant has said since late in 2008 that its next public step after the release candidate will be the final version, also known as the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) build. Publicly, the company has always been hesitant to provide a date and has always insisted that Windows 7 would be ready about three years after Windows Vista hit stores, or early 2010 — though the presence of a release candidate with seven months left in 2009 has already cast doubts on this estimate,” Malley reports.

“A PC maker, however, may well have undermined what has been increasingly evident is an attempt to push Windows 7 to completion for the holiday shopping season. Acer told UK site Pocket-lint on Thursday that Microsoft will ship Windows 7 on October 23rd,” Malley reports.

“In its latest quarterly report, Microsoft reported a 6 percent year-over-year drop in total revenue; it’s a relatively small amount, but the first the company had registered in over 23 years and one the company said would be turned around by Windows 7,” Malley reports. “As such, the release candidate is an important part of a public relations strategy to improve Windows’ image that Microsoft knows is particularly time-sensitive — both for its own bottom line as well as a race against the clock to avoid giving Apple’s Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which itself is gaining late feature additions, enough lead time to tempt customers away from Windows.”

Full article, with some screenshots, here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Brawndo Drinker" for the heads up.]