News

Microsoft Releases Windows Embedded Standard CTP

• By Jeffrey Schwartz
• June 5, 2008

Windows Embedded Standard will replace Windows XP Embedded, Microsoft officials said at this week's Tech-Ed conference in Orlando, Fla. The new version boasts several new key technologies from Redmond, among them Microsoft's new Silverlight rich interactive application runtime, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) 6.1 and support for the .NET Framework 3.5.

Also noteworthy about the new Windows Embedded release is its intended audience. While the key consumers of Windows Embedded are OEM suppliers of single-function devices, by announcing the release at Tech-Ed Microsoft is also reaching out to enterprise development shops that can benefit from developing applications to devices such as point-of-sale systems, ATM machines and kiosks.

"In the future, enterprises [will] want to connect the embedded devices onto the same infrastructures as PCs," said John Doyle, Microsoft's senior product manager for Windows Embedded.

The move should help enterprise development shops coalesce their programming resources to build out applications already intended for Windows onto embedded systems, according to Rob Enderle, principal analyst of the San Jose, Calif.-based Enderle Group.

"A lot of these shops have a deep pool of folks that can develop on Windows," Enderle said. "Microsoft is positioning Windows Embedded as a full-featured offering that is better targeted at folks that otherwise might not have used it.

Critical to that is the RDP 6.1 support, which is key to providing connectivity to Windows Server 2008 and Vista, Doyle said. The Windows Embedded release will also support Microsoft's Network Access Protection, its new platform for controlling access to systems on a network via a client PC's identity. It is designed to comply with enterprise governance and policies.

The CTP is available here.