Microsoft's Build conference registration starts Jan. 22
Build 2015 will run from April 29 to May 1, and again take place in the Moscone Center, the facility Microsoft has used the last two years, where both Apple and Google also host their annual developer gatherings.
Registration for Build 2015 will kick off on Thursday, Jan. 22, at 9 a.m. PT on the conference's website.
Prices for the three-day event have not been revealed, but the last two years the entry fee has been $2,095. Tickets quickly sold out in both 2013 and 2014, with supplies exhausted in about 24 hours and 31 hours, respectively.
The focus of this year's Build will undoubtedly be Windows 10, the OS upgrade Microsoft plans to release later this year -- probably in the early fall, the last timeline an executive offered up.
When Microsoft issued the Windows 10 Technical Preview in 2014, it stressed the OS's enterprise-centric features. Next week, the company will spotlight Windows 10's consumer side, and then follow that with developer pitches at Build.
Critical to Windows 10's success will be whether Microsoft can energize its large developer community and convince those programmers -- both independents and ones employed by companies for in-house work -- to craft apps for the operating system. Microsoft has touted what it calls "universal" Windows apps that allow developers to leverage the same code and call the same APIs for software designed for multiple devices, from smartphones and tablets to PCs and hybrids, part of its effort to decrease development time and expense, and thus tempt more to commit to the currently-anemic platform.
Windows 10 will also feature a single app store for all devices -- Microsoft will combine the Windows Phone and Windows desktop stores -- and what the firm once called "Metro" apps will run within a window on the traditional PC desktop.
If Microsoft follows standard practice, it will live webcast the Build keynote to all comers. It's likely that CEO Satya Nadella will headline the keynote.