Most of us are still just exploring Windows 7. All this while Microsoft has been doing a lot of brainstorming and research to release the next version, which is going to be so much more than we could ever expect. At least Microsoft seems to think so.

This could be a cheap trick to throw the hounds off its trail. But this could be a genuine gaffe of some sloppy fellow on their team. In which case, we have a fair idea of Microsoft’s game-plan. First discovered by the Italian Windows-enthusiast site “Windowsette”, which accidentally stumbled upon top-secret Microsoft presentations bearing the watermark “Microsoft Confidential”, posted the sneaky stuff on their blog.

What is surprising, and will probably have the Apple guys gloating with pride, is the unabashed mention of Apple’s business strategies. The corresponding slide reads, ‘Apple brand is known for high quality, uncomplicated, ‘It just works,’” and concludes with “This is something people will pay for!”

The slides even went on to imply the possibility of a “Windows Store”. This indicates that even though Windows is far ahead of Apple when it comes to the PC OS market demand with a recent estimated sale of 150 million licenses for Windows 7 in eight months, they probably thought it couldn’t harm to take a tip or two from the overwhelming success of Apple’s App Store model.

Other points that hike up our optimism includes the slide saying that “Windows 8 PC’s turn on fast, nearly instantly in some cases, and are ready to work without any long or unexpected delays.” Another slide even suggests the use of webcams for visual login with face recognition, with the option to customize actions depending on the current user.

Before you get your hopes too high, we should probably tell you that most of the slides are just stamped as “Windows 8 Discussion”. With at least a year to go before Windows 8 is ready for a beta release, we can only cross our fingers and say our prayers.