Microsoft reveals Windows Embedded Compact 7 at Computex, hosts heaps of tablets
By Darren Murph 
posted June 2nd 2010 2:31AM
posted June 2nd 2010 2:31AM
Microsoft Outlines Business Opportunities for Hardware Makers Across Windows Platform
Guggenheimer announces Windows Embedded Compact 7 community technology preview for manufacturers of consumer and enterprise devices.
TAIPEI, Taiwan - June 1, 2010 - During a keynote address tomorrow at COMPUTEX TAIPEI, Steve Guggenheimer, corporate vice president of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Division at Microsoft Corp., will outline how the company continues to deliver expanded partner opportunities to support rich and connected experiences. Product demonstrations will showcase the diversity and breadth of devices supported across the Windows platform, including desktop PCs, smartphones, netbooks, laptops, tablets, slates, game consoles, set-top boxes and servers. He will also discuss the enthusiastic response from partners and the larger market to the latest version of the Windows operating system, Windows 7. Since its launch this past October, more than 100 million licenses have been sold, making it the fastest-selling operating system in history.
As part of this effort to deliver richer customer experiences across a variety of scenarios, Microsoft will unveil the public community technology preview (CTP) for Windows Embedded Compact 7, the next generation of Microsoft's widely used Windows Embedded Compact platform for hardware manufacturers of specialized devices. With a $9.5 billion annual investment in research and development, Microsoft is committed to continued innovation and bringing new products to market that meet the needs of customers.
"The Windows platform creates tangible opportunities for our hardware partners to diversify their product portfolios and deliver rich computing experiences across a broad range of devices," Guggenheimer said. "The Windows Embedded Compact 7 toolkit will allow for richer customer experiences on a variety of specialized devices. We look forward to continued collaboration with our hardware partners to bring the very best experiences to customers worldwide."
Windows Embedded Compact 7
During the keynote address, Guggenheimer will demonstrate how specialized devices built on Windows Embedded Compact 7 will be able to provide immersive multimedia user experiences for consumers and businesses and offer seamless connectivity to PCs running Windows 7, servers and online services, as well as simplified access to corporate information for enterprise users. New technologies in Windows Embedded Compact 7 will provide developers and designers with powerful tools and a streamlined development experience to build compelling devices quickly and easily, while also providing customized and branded experiences.
Additional features and capabilities of Windows Embedded Compact 7 include the following:
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Rich and connected experiences for consumers. Windows Embedded Compact 7 gives consumers the ability to share and manage content across networked devices with Digital Living Network Alliance, such as new HDTVs, and a new media library.
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Simplified access to information for enterprise users. Windows Embedded Compact 7 makes it easier to connect to corporate e-mail, calendar and contacts over enterprise networks through Microsoft AirSync and Microsoft Exchange, as well as to Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF viewers to access important documents, and to Windows 7 Device Stage to transfer data and media between PCs and devices.
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Resources for hardware manufacturers and developers. Windows Embedded Compact 7 provides resources to help bring high-performing, highly reliable and differentiated specialty devices to market quicker with support for multicore and the latest asset relationship management-based architecture and tools, including Platform Builder, Visual Studio, Expression Blend and Silverlight for Windows Embedded.
The Windows Embedded Compact 7 CTP is available now for developers at http://www.windowsembedded.com/compact7. The platform is expected to be released to manufacturing in the fourth quarter of this year.
During the keynote, Guggenheimer will also outline how hardware manufacturers can take advantage of the next wave of Microsoft products, including Windows 7, Windows Embedded Compact 7, Windows Live Messenger, Windows® Phone 7, Windows Server and Microsoft Office 2010, to deliver unique and compelling experiences across multiple devices and screens. He will demonstrate the power of Microsoft software on devices from smartphones to TVs and everything in between; Windows Live as a cloud service working across devices for a seamless, interactive experience; exciting developments on Windows-based slate devices; and a variety of scenarios highlighting the customer benefits of Microsoft's deep collaboration with hardware manufacturers.
Highlights from Guggenheimer's keynote - including demos, video excerpts and a transcript - and more detailed information on Windows Embedded Compact 7 will be available by visiting the Windows Embedded Newsroom at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/embedded/default.aspx or by following http://twitter.com/MSFTWEB for updates.
@TareG its not app based wince7 uses full fledged software like a regular embbeded thats why =P
@Ralven IT is APP based APP = APPLication which this runs
and this will not run computer software since it not an embbeded its a embbeded compact
@DefPoet
after making a huge rant about how everything runs "apps" because it's short for "applications", it's kinda odd you say this won't run "computer software"...
@TareG
Good lord! The folks here can't agree on the identity of this OS. Who are the geniuses at MS that come out with all these ridiculous names ?! How can every name keep having four words and somehow help with market focus?
Am I missing something here?!
@Quickbeam - So true! I'm confused about what's what and who's who. MS needs to clean up - at least - it's naming scheme
all other things aside,Microsoft needs better wallpapers for their devices.
Basically it is half baked closed source, it is just a sham, cooked up a month ago i guess. Where is the SDK, apps anyone? No wonder no one is allowed to play with them, there will be too many bugs
Guess my decision to sell my ipad was good. I didnt like the fact that i was still using my computer to load content on my ipad plus i hate totally hate itunes. I want my tablet to be a stand alone device with memory card slot and web cam. let it be Windows embeded or android or whatever. Atleast be able to have a device which is independent of pc/mac is what i am looking forward to. Future is looking good.
@enaybee
why'd u even buy one then? Did u think for some reason you wouldn't need iTunes to sync?
hmm none of those slabs really intrigues me. I'd rather not have those things run full-fledged desktop softwares. I don't think tablets are the platform for those applications, and besides, the UIs of those applications/softwares (at least, the existing ones) are not optimized for touch-based interaction. And from the looks of it, this Windows Embedded Compact 7 seems to have exactly the same UI as Windows 7 - not smart. I'd rather use WP7 or Zune UI on these things.
@msunardi
this will not run desktop software as it is the compact edition of window7
and is meant to run on ARM chips, also this is the base ui which almost always on compact windows have other ui on top. Think of every WM phone almost every dedicated GPS and others they all run some form of windows compact
@DefPoet
I hope so. It's just that the recent tablet/slate products that came out seem to try to rival iPad by cramming in features to run full desktop version of Windows 7, which I think is silly. Hope MS come to their senses with this. Although, I hope MS would come up with their own hardware (Zune HD is awesome, damn them for nixing Courier).
@DefPoet
actually, they don't run "on top". They run there own UI "instead"
@nabberuk
actually they run inside of applications if we are talking about GPS units since it is very easy to exit said app and install others if you google alittle
that windows pc gallery looks soo good dayummmm lol
cool, i just need to wait for asus to implement this into a sexy tablet.
Wow .... The comments are that long yet on this post but were very painful to read.
No one here knows what they're talking about ... With the shiny exception of sRc ... This is a replacement for windows xp embedded ... It shares a LOT of code with windows 7 ...
To the person griping and saying where is the sdk? Well let's see ... You have c++, silverlight, java, XML, etc .... Since when do you need a sdk to write windows code? This platform will be a widgetfest.
Windows is one of the most open platforms to write for.
Licensing for windows embedded 7 isn't going to cost much either for manufacturers.
Think .... Then type people :)
@darthgault Did you even read the headline? This is not about Windows Embedded, it's about Windows Embedded COMPACT. Not the same thing.
@pika2000
Yes ... I read the whole article too ... This isn't an update to the old CE ... This is a brand new set of software which is designed for embedding in higher end devices. It's based on windows 7 code. The details aren't in the engadget article ..... or written out in crayon for you.
@darthgault It's CE. I have the SDK sitting in front of me right now.
@darthgault Apparently you failed to realize that there is Windows Embedded (based on the desktop OS), and there is Windows Embedded Compact (previously known as winCE, which is what this is). This is separate from the NT line (XP, 7, etc). :rolleyes: Are you eating too many crayons?
how is this not "breaking" ?
i wish this didn't coincide with the steve-chat so engadget could post a proper article about this proper piece of tech news, instead of gushing over and making a new flabbergasted article out of every other sentence that comes out of steve's mouth
http://www.engadget.com/photos/microsofts-galleria-of-tablets-at-computex-2010/#3033554
Damn it! Where is crlt + alt + f2 on this keybo...? wait I dont have a keyboard.
@dds1043
perhaps it could have some kind of "virtual" method of inputting these commands?
Only one question: who wants a tablet running Windows??
(...looks around the room, hears only tumbleweed..)
@Reality Check I do.
@Reality Check
maybe you should see a doctor - i think there's something wrong with your hearing
@Reality Check
I do. It'll be like a netbook only more sexy.
This will hopefully be good for thin clients for terminal services (Remote Desktop). Hopefully they won't screw everyone like they did on the previous version of CE when they later updated RDP but didn't update CE to match.
So what exactly is Windows Embedded Compact? just a light weight version of windows? Does it still have to run on x86 or does it run on ARM? Can it run all Windows 7 Apps or just Windows EC apps?
This is why MS will fail on tablets. They can just use WP7 for tablets because it seems it would scale really well. Instead they go and drop this turd.
the fact that average consumer cant understand most of this confusion is enough to see what MS did wrong...wtf is this are they using win7 for tablets or what?
There indeed is a lot of confusion here... Windows Embedded Compact 7 is not "big Windows" and is not based on Windows 7. It is the new version of Windows CE, a componentized, real time, small footprint OS developped from the ground up at Microsoft 13 years and that has rooled out 6 major releases since then. It runs on multiple CPU architectures including ARM and x86.
You can see it as a box of Legos. Microsoft provides the toolkit and OS bits to OEMs who create their own OS based on it. They don't "install" CE/Compact on a machine, they litterally build the OS on a dev machine. In addition, you get most of the OS as source code that you can modify and compile at will.
It inherits some of the Windows technologies that were ported/adapted, .Net Compact Framework, Internet Explorer or Silverlight for Windows Embedded being some examples of this.
You should definitively see it as a toolkit, not as a monolithic OS.
It does not come with a unique locked shell (appart from a desktop like shell for debugging purposes) given that it is intended to be used on so many various types of embedded devices as various as industrial automation controllers, set top boxes, phones, thin clients, multimedia players... There fore, form factors and user input methods are so various that it would imply providing so many different shells... Microsoft provides some shell samples in the box, along with a media library, media players engines, Internet Explorer engine, fully customizable UIs for these engines and so on...
Please do not confuse with Windows Embedded STANDARD 7 which is a componentized version of Windows 7.
The naming might seem confusing, but it actually is intended for OEMs to better identify who is who in the Windows Embedded family and to understand they have different options for different type of devices and hardware that are complementary.
So it goes from the smaller to the bigger:
Windows Embedded Compact
Windows Embedded Standard
Windows Embedded Enterprise
Windows Embedded Server
and you also have some vertical solutions:
Windows Embedded POSReady
Windows Embedded Automotive
all accessible through the same channel to OEMs.
-Olivier
Man...those monitors need stands. And where is the keyboard/mouse?
Giggidy.
Would be great if Stardock Windowblinds could be ported to these Windows 7 tablets.