Microsoft: 100,000 Windows 8 apps will be available by February

In a television interview with Beet.TV, Microsoft's U.S. sales and marketing vice president Keith Lorizio said that Windows 8 will be a success, calling it a "very special experience" which is driven by the consumer.

The interview revealed some rather ambitious goals for the PC maker, who expects 400 million Windows 8 devices to be in the grasp of customer hands by next July. He said:

"With Windows 8, it's not just about pivoting around productivity, which every Windows release has been known for -- now we're going to pivot off the consumer."

The new operating system is expect to be a strong force, as Lorizio cited the anticipated 400 million devices as a key distributor in a one billion-plus consumer marketplace. This includes both new sales and upgrades of the current Windows 7 OS.

Lorizio said it was "critical" for a wide variety of Windows 8 apps to be available if the new platform is going to be a hit. "We're expecting to aggressively pursue 100,000-plus apps over the first three months," the exec said.

This is billed by Lorizio as a way to improve the customer experience, but each Windows Store app will also be include paid advertisements -- something the representative claims will not be a distraction. Instead, he claims that although every advertisement will be integrated, they will be "beautiful, relevant and useful".

When asked what publishers of content could expect from Windows 8, the exec said:

"Every publisher who adds an app into the portfolio of apps we have in the marketplace ... we will work with them in order to execute a deal so they can take a share of the revenue for all the ads that we sell on to the network, and the same ads will appear across the network of advertisers, and the most unique thing [..] will be a common look and feel."

Microsoft's partners can choose to sell their own advertisements on the network, and also have the option to select their own advertisement controls in the Windows 8 ecosystem. However, Microsoft has needed to invest "millions of dollars against the effort" to generate enough Windows 8 apps to create a "healthy ecosystem".

Lorizio says the 400 user-mark by July first is "conservative" -- but the distribution model, making the experience uniform across all Microsoft-hosted devices, and a "critical mass" of apps will make the new platform a "guaranteed success".