| Microsoft plots embedded OS futures |
Oct. 09, 2007
 In his keynote at the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) last month, Kevin Dallas, GM of Microsoft's Windows Embedded unit, tipped some of his group's future product plans. Included are new versions of Windows CE 6.0 and Windows XP Embedded, plus the arrival of "Windows Vista Embedded."
Before detailing these, Dallas began his talk by providing "examples of where we could improve as an industry." Devices need to be service-aware, he said, citing telephony and navigation as examples.
It should be possible to use a mobile device to receive a phone call at home via VoIP (voice over IP), have it automatically switch to a WAN (and hands-free operation) when moved to a car, then seamlessly switch over to a corporate WLAN at the office, said Dallas. Similarly, he added, navigation devices ought to move information from a PC, to a mobile device, to an in-car system automatically.
Dallas noted four key trends that Microsoft is trying to develop its embedded technologies around, according to Dallas. These are:- The "Software Plus Service" concept. "We can no longer build software that just sits on a device," he said. "Instead, we have to build software plus a service."
- Next, is a move away from just ramping up clock speed, and toward having multiple heterogeneous cores on a single chip -- an applications processor, a graphics processor, and a radio processor.
- Then there's the trend toward loosely-coupled services. Today, a device such as the Zune portable music player (PMP) is tied to a single music store, while a set-top box might be tightly coupled to a specific video-on-demand service. "In the future, these devices will be able to discover and connect to other services," Dallas said.
- "Finally, of course, there's service-oriented development," Dallas continued. A service that a device is connecting to "may be on the same device in another core, it could be on the circuit board, it could be on the premises where the device sits, or it could be connecting out ... to a web service that's, frankly, on the other side of the world."
Visual Programming Language (VPL)
Dallas continued his keynote by revealing a new tool called the Visual Programming Language (VPL), with demos by Windows Embedded software architect Mike Hall. "Many developers think of building embedded operating systems in terms of technology stacks ... What we're suggesting is that you start to think at a much higher level," he said.
VPL will allow developers to use a graphical user interface to link services together, explained Hall. It will then be possible to determine at build time whether these services are going to run on a single device or on distributed devices, he said.
Hall added that, "As you start to link the inputs and outputs of services together, you are dynamically prompted for the inputs and the outputs that you want to match ... The tools will be smart about determining the matchup between the output of one service and the input of another."
| Windows Embedded Roadmap |
|---|
Windows CE 6.0 Release 2 -- Nov. 15, 2007, with Web Services on Devices (WSD), enhanced VoIP, and AJAX support
Windows XP Embedded -- sometime in 2008, based on Windows XP Service Pack 3, including .NET Framework 3.0, an updated Media Player, and an RDP (remote desktop protocol) 6 client
Windows Vista Embedded -- in 2009 or 2010, a componentized version of Windows Vista |
New versions of Windows Embedded
Dallas then detailed future releases of Microsoft's embedded operating systems. First among these will be Windows CE 6.0 Release 2, scheduled for release on Nov. 15, he said.
According to Dallas, this release will add AJAX (asynchronous Javascript and XML) and "heavy data entry" support in the browser. It also will include enhanced VoIP functionality, such as three-way audio and video conferencing.
The most key feature, according to Dallas, is Web Services on Devices (WSD). This is already included in Windows Vista as a native stack; it's said the addition of it to Windows CE 6.0 Release 2 will allow communication between the two.
A manage code runtime environment, such as .NET Compact Framework, is no longer required, according to Hall, who also provided a "bubble" demo of graphics on a Vista machine being controlled by a Windows CE device. Instead, Hall said, WSD applications can be written in C or C++.
The second OS update, scheduled for "2008" according to Dallas, will be an enhancement to Windows XP Embedded based on the forthcoming Windows XP Service Pack 3. It will include .NET Framework 3.0, an updated Media Player, and version 6 of the Remote Desktop Client (RDP), he said.
Finally, "Windows Vista Embedded," a componentized version of Windows Vista, akin to Windows XP Embedded, will appear in "2009 or 2010."
Dallas concluded by saying, "You'll see this common theme of new releases every two years. In between, you'll see updates in components to drive differentiation, and updates in tools."
"We're going to continue our ongoing investment [in embedded]," he promised. "We realize what our role is going to be around platform tools and services that enable these smart, connected service-oriented devices. So we're going to continue to drive leadership in that area."
Further reading
For more details of the keynote, you can download a complete transcript of Kevin Dallas's ESC Boston 2007 speech (PDF format). For Mike Hall's account of his demos during Dallas's keynote, go here.
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