January 2009 looks set to become the month when testers will get their hands on Windows 7's first beta, despite only having been publicly unveiled as a pre-beta in late October at the Professional Developer Conference. In particular, a blog posting on Microsoft's TechNet site says that developers attending any MSDN conference from January 13th onwards will get a DVD with Windows 7 beta 1 on it.
Additionally, attendees at events scheduled prior to that date will have DVDs mailed to them when they become available. At its debut last month, Windows 7 was said to be receiving just one developer beta before moving on to a broader public version and then the final release, thus the current timeframe at the very least suggests that the company is hard at work to get Windows 7 out the door in mid or late 2009 rather than early 2010.