A purported roadmap posted to a Microsoft website shows Office 15 launching in early 2013. [Image: Maarten Visser.]

Cherry argued that a reliable timeline was more important for an operating system than for an application like Office, big as the latter is to Microsoft's revenue, because fewer partners work with Office than with Windows.

"For an OS like Windows, especially WOA [ ], I'm kind of stunned at the lack of information available at this point," Cherry said. "There are a lot of people who need to be aware of the changes in Windows and WOA."

Directions on Microsoft creates detailed roadmaps for its clients, but the job is neither simple or easy.

"It's very hard to do, to represent [a roadmap] well," said Cherry, adding that it's necessary to show dependencies between products -- how Internet Explorer relies on Windows, for instance -- and timelines that include older products for those rare times when Microsoft takes features from a new edition and .