Windows Mobile 6.5′s new life
According to VDC Research Group's report on Windows Mobile, the 6.5 OS stack is not going away.
Although Microsoft is poised to release Windows Phone 7 -- essentially a clean break from their legacy smart phone line-up, based on new technology, such as Silverlight and XNA -- the Windows Mobile 6.5 OS shares lineage with Windows Embedded CE, the OS at the core of many hand-held devices such as those used in POS scanners, or by, say, courier services.
It is time for Microsoft to re-think their smart phone offering to better compete with iPhone and Android, but they practically own the market on embedded devices, and neither need to, nor should, step away from it, or even re-think it drastically. Fortunately, Windows Mobile 6.5 has a new life as Windows Embedded Handheld.
Windows Embedded itself has been re-aligned significantly as well, and it should be noted that much of the product line is now, essentially, the full Windows -- customized for a compartmentalized install: Windows Embedded Standard is really just Windows 7, while Windows Embedded Server is really Windows Server 2008.
Windows Embedded Handheld, however, remains based on the CE core, and traditional Windows CE and Windows Mobile apps can live on, and continue development, on this technology. Meanwhile new technology layers, including Silverlight, are being added to Windows Embedded Handheld to keep the platform evolving -- much as Windows Phone 7 evolves the core with new technologies.
If this is all confusing, don't be concerned -- its taken awhile for the roadmap to resolve itself. Microsoft, however, is finally in a position to execute on each of its competencies in multiple categories of portable and embedded devices -- from simple scanners, through next-gen smart phones, to multi-touch Slates. Here's a quick chart to clarify:
| MS Offering | OS its based on/derived from | Compatible Code |
| Windows Embedded Handheld | Windows Mobile 6.5 | CE/Windows Phone 6.5 apps, Silverlight + Native Code |
| Windows Phone 7 | New Offering (CE kernel) | Silverlight 3/XNA + Managed Code |
| Windows Embedded Standard | Windows 7 | Almost anything that runs on Windows 7 (as long as dependencies are in the image) |
| Windows Embedded Standard | Windows Server 2008 R2 | Almost anything that runs on Windows Server 2008 R2 (as long as dependencies are in the image) |