Windows CE is NOT dead!

I am just back from the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, CA and I (again) had to answer these same questions again and again: “So is CE really dead?”, “Now you killed CE, how are you addressing the ARM-based platforms?”, “How is it that you are still using Visual Studio 2005?”, “So Windows Embedded products are all different SKUs of the same product, right?”…

Here are some signs that make people think this way:

  • Windows Embedded CE 6.0 OSDesign tools are still integrated into Visual Studio 2005, not even 2008…
  • Visual Studio 2010 does not support Smart Device development (that is the support for developing native and .Net CF applications for Windows CE and Windows Mobile/Phone)…
  • Next version of Windows Embedded CE has been delayed several times…
  • Windows Phone 7 doesn’t clearly states what is the underlying OS…

So let me say this: Windows CE is NOT dead. Our devs are heads down finalizing Windows Embedded Compact 7 that will ship soon and that Microsoft will support over the next 10 years (at least). Windows Embedded team is investing a lot in adding new features, creating new tools to support these new features, analyzing the Embedded market really seriously… Does that sound like a dead product? Definitively not.

By the Way, Windows Phone 7 is based on the Windows Embedded Compact 7 core

You will hear more from me and the Windows Embedded team during the next couple of months and you will understand what I am talking about :-). Lots of good things are coming. Stay tuned.