The company's latest operating system will be available to hardware makers in early August. Microsoft has confirmed that windows 8 product key has entered the RTM phase (short for "release to manufacturing" means release for mass production) in early August this year. This means that Microsoft's hardware partners will receive WINDOWS 8 PRODUCT KEY officially in early August this year to put in their handsets. According to Slashgear, all future modifications to the operating system will be released by Microsoft as a package or patch. Meanwhile, the RTM release is simply intended to help Microsoft software engineers know the deadline to end the development of Windows 8 officially. Previously, the "software giant" will launch Windows 8 to market in the second half of this year. However, the release time in fact is slower than the company's intended. Meanwhile, Apple's latest OS X operating system will hit the market this summer.