Microsoft Readies Two Versions of Windows CE

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,652367,00.asp">http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,652367,00.asp</a><br /><br />"The Redmond, Wash., developer is targeting a new set of smart devices, including VOIP (voice-over-IP) phones, with the next version of CE, code-named McKendric and due next year. The company plans to follow that release in 2005 with a version of CE code-named Macallan that includes greater storage capabilities and better file system technology."<br /><br />Here is the interesting thing - emphasis mine - "McKendric will also achieve API compatibility with the Pocket PC at the shell level. <i>As Microsoft moves forward with Pocket PC, the goal is to align it on the latest version of Windows CE</i> so it can benefit from enhancements already made in power management and wireless networking." Woohoo! This means, I think, that as new versions of Windows CE are released, updated versions of the Pocket PC may be months or even weeks behind, not <i><b>years</b></i> like it is now. Windows CE.NET was released so long ago I don't even remember what the date is, yet Pocket PCs are still based on Windows CE 3.0.<br /><br />I still didn't see anything in there about CE or Pocket PC being optimized for ARMv5 (X-Scale, TI-OMAP, etc) processors. :wink: Source: sweetpete

[JvanEkris]

Yep,

Ce 4.0 was released Januari 14th 2002, and still no new OS :( Microsoft is really slow with these updates. Perhaps were not on the priority-list ???

Jaap

[Pony99CA]

Ce 4.0 was released Januari 14th 2002, and still no new OS :( Microsoft is really slow with these updates. Perhaps were not on the priority-list ???
Maybe Pocket PC Phone Edition and SmartPhone were a bit more important?

Steve

[Andy Sjostrom]

I believe you are right Ed.
When looking at what's going on in the products and what just happened from an organizational point-of-view, Microsoft will tightly coordinate Windows CE and Pocket PC schedules.

[entropy1980]

Looks like it will be 2 birds with 1 stone... this kind of started with ce.net in that they started takingsome of the API's from the Pocket PC Team and integrating them in.

[Jonathan1]

A thought. Dell is holding off releasing their PDA's right? Dell is so tight with Microsoft that they are practically attached at the hip. Is it a possibility that this holding pattern from Dell could be because MS will be releasing something soon? 8O God I hope so and if so I hope its a REAL honest to god update of the system!

[ThomasC22]

Here's my read on things at Microsoft, remember thought that I'm just making this up from past stories about Microsoft and don't have ANY inside info to back it up...

My theory is that before a few months ago (give or take) the PocketPC wasn't more than a blip on the WindowsCE teams radar. The WinCE team is a pretty paranoid group at this point...not only do they have to compete with an outside product that is basically given away for free (JVM) but they're forced to compete with another division of Microsoft as well (WinXP Embedded). Further, alot of WinCE devices have bit the dust in the last couple years (UltimateTV for example) and they've lost a lot of job internally as well (X-Box for example). With all that pressure on them, I don't think you can really blame them for not paying much attention to the PPC group. This is common in Microsoft history, the IE4 team (who were also in charge of the Windows Shell) and the Consumer Windows team almost killed eachother at one point. Same situation.

But I think over the last few months Microsoft top brass (Ballmer, Gates, Allchin et al) have started to realize that the PocketPC is gaining some momentum. Ballmer has given the "sapplings" speech to the press tons of times and just recently has PocketPC been one of the "sapplings". As a matter of fact we began the year with him saying they would be porting .NET to the Palm.

But with both WinCE losing a lot of customers (mostly internal) and PPC doing well I would think the PPC has become a fairly high priority at this point.

[Ed Hansberry]

Here's my read on things at Microsoft, remember thought that I'm just making this up from past stories about Microsoft and don't have ANY inside info to back it up...

My theory is that before a few months ago (give or take) the PocketPC wasn't more than a blip on the WindowsCE teams radar.
Nope. In fact, CE 3.0 was developed for the Pocket PC and that is why PPC 2000 shipped before CE 3.0 was done. That made the PPC the reason for CE's existance for a few months.

Furthermore, the mobile devices division is one of the 7 pillars of MS's strategy going forward, along with desktop OSs, gaming, etc. It has been a high priority for 3 years. Things are happening. Pocket PC, Pocket PC 2002, Pocket PC Phone Edition 2002, SmartPhone 2002, CE/PPC API alignment, etc. They may not be happening as fast as you or I would like, but it is moving faster than it appears. Lots of stuff going on in the back room. :D (confidential - don't tell anyone I told you this - last time I was at Redmond there was a door in the Mobile Devices group's building that had "PPC Neural Input Testing" on the door. When you see the project coded as synapse in the news, you'll know. :wink: )

[ThomasC22]

Furthermore, the mobile devices division is one of the 7 pillars of MS's strategy going forward, along with desktop OSs, gaming, etc. It has been a high priority for 3 years.

WELLLLLLLL :?

Here's the thing, I have nothing to back up my opinion, but the one thing I can tell you, having read several "after the fact" books on Microsoft is that rarely do they openly express what they're actually thinking.

Remember, in 1993 the world belonged to Pen Computing and Microsoft was putting the whole company behind it...I think that's when they were focusing most of their efforts on OS/2, eh?

[Jonathan1]

Furthermore, the mobile devices division is one of the 7 pillars of MS's strategy going forward, along with desktop OSs, gaming, etc. It has been a high priority for 3 years. Things are happening. Pocket PC, Pocket PC 2002, Pocket PC Phone Edition 2002, SmartPhone 2002, CE/PPC API alignment, etc. They may not be happening as fast as you or I would like, but it is moving faster than it appears. Lots of stuff going on in the back room. :D

I certainly hope so Ed because from my and many other PPC users perspective it looks as if MS is standing still when it comes to the Pocket PC. Phone Ed is all well and good but it’s only a slight upgrade from PPC 2002 and PPC 2002 is really only a .5 upgrade from PPC 2000. Now look at MS's push into the Tablet PC world, XBox, Windows XP. You compare it to some of its other projects and the Pocket PC format almost looks dead in comparison. I truly TRULY hope you are right and we are going to see something remarkably updated in the near future. I hope. But as I've stated before. I ain't holding my breath after the Pocket PC 2002 letdown. :?

[Ed Hansberry]

I certainly hope so Ed because from my and many other PPC users perspective it looks as if MS is standing still when it comes to the Pocket PC. Phone Ed is all well and good but it’s only a slight upgrade from PPC 2002 and PPC 2002 is really only a .5 upgrade from PPC 2000. Now look at MS's push into the Tablet PC world, XBox, Windows XP.

Yes, lets do that. In April 2000, Pocket PC 2000 launched. Huge changes from the previous version. In October 2001, PPC 2002 launched. 18 months later. Lots of nice changes, but yes, I'd agree it was a .5 upgrade. Enhancements and fixes.

Now, Windows XP? A visual upgrade from Windows 2000. Look at the version number. Open a command prompt and do winver on a 2000 and XP box. 2000 is NT5, XP is NT5.1.

XBox? All new in 2001. Lets see what overhaul they have ready in April of 2003 to tie the 18 month cycle the Pocket PC seems to be on, including the often rumored early 2003 update pending.

Tablet PC? A full year after XP and it is really XP with additional things thrown in to enable keyboardless input.

MS is pushing hard on all fronts. Just because the last update to PPC 2002 was 12 months ago (not to mention 3 EUUs having been released by MS since) doesn't mean it isn't moving forward.

Guys, this isn't some cool piece of shareware that can be revamped every 3 months. This is an OS! And this article explicitly states what Jason, Marlof, I and others have been saying for over a year! The Pocket PC UI is not a simple shell slapped on top of CE 3.0. It is a UI but also a rich set of APIs on top of it. So rich that many were worked into CE.NET, like Tap-and-hold functionality. Taking the PPC bits and plopping them on top of CE.NET is simply not possible. There is much work to be done. To prevent this work in the future, the CE.NET team is working closer than ever with the Mobile Devices group to align the APIs. Do I want an ARMv5 optimized Pocket PC running on Windows CE.NET? You betcha! Do I think that is a process that can be done over a summer? No way. Those that do are living in a fantasy world.

It took MS's largest service pack team ever 1 year to develop SP1 for Windows XP. It took them 18 months to redo the Windows 2000 UI and add a few features to the core OS, the coolest of which is the streamlined boot process - but there were over 5,000 people working on it! 5,000 people! You can't put that many people o nthe PPC in any event because it is a much smaller OS with far far fewer components and they are still cranking out big updates every 18 months (going back to 1998) and regular service packs every 3-6 months.

meanwhile Palm releases OS5, their first major update since 1996, and it is very minor. In fact, they are already downplaying it (as I said they would) and touting OS6 as the real deal. :roll: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27855.html