Redmond-based Microsoft may only recently have pushed out Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 to the end user, but it has long since been the public knowledge that the company is looking at moving towards more regular release cycles. The days of completely revamped offerings arriving every five years or so will soon be a thing of the past, and incremental, annual improvements will then ensue. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, then, that the software maker should be working on Windows 9 and Windows Phone 9, and as a recent job posting infers, the company is on the hunt for a few more specialist engineers to add to its team.

In a job posting for a Bing Software Development Engineer, the company notes that the individual taking up the role will be working not only on Windows 9, but also the IE11 browser. Internet Explorer has certainly lost its way among the likes of Google Chrome and Firefox, but with IE10 seeming to bring Microsoft’s famed client into the 21st century at last, the company is clearly looking to build on that progress.

It’s only natural that, if Microsoft is working on Windows 9, it will also be taking similar steps with Windows Phone 9, and that’s exactly the notion implied iSoftStone. The company tells of working on a month-long project for Windows Phone 9, with tasks including the deployment of XAP/APPX apps. Although this information is not as strong as the job posting, there’s little doubt Microsoft is looking to keep its software product ranges in sync, and now it looks as though the wheels are in motion for both.

To add even more legitimacy to the claim that Microsoft is well into prepping Windows 8 / WP8, a Microsoft employee noted in her profile that she’s working on Windows 9 OS for Nokia, HTC and Qualcomm devices. We can only presume, at this stage, she probably meant Windows Phone 9, but as Neowin points out, it could also be that the company is preparing to brand its products under the one umbrella term. It was also reported a while back that the next iteration of Windows might be codenamed ‘Blue’, but considering today’s report, that might not be the case.

So, there you have it. Not exactly significant revelations, I grant you, but at least we have concrete evidence that the process of bringing the next Windows versions has begun.

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