Windows 7: Arriving in a system near you Oct. 23?

Windows 7 may be arriving on systems Oct. 23, according to an Acer exec that provided a fine slip up at a press conference in Europe just as Windows 7 RC 1 was overheating download servers.

ZDNet UK's Rupert Goodwins reports the verbal gaffe heard around the blogosphere:

David Meyer has just phoned in a hot news tip moments ago from a meeting he's been having with Acer. The vice-president for Europe, Massimo D'Angelo, was getting excited about AIO, the company's forthcoming All In One PC, with all sorts of things like multitouch, things to show off all the wonderful capabilities of Windows 7 - and said that it would be in-store at the back end of September, using Windows 7 technology. David asked whether D'Angelo had just outed the release date for Windows 7. He replied no, the AIO would go on sale on the 23rd of October "and not a day before".

Given the reaction from marketing folks at Acer, Goodwins reckons this slip-up may be the real deal. It certainly sounds plausible. And Microsoft has every incentive to get Windows 7 out the door sooner than later given its client revenue slippage.

Also see: Database glitch causes Windows 7 download server meltdown