This week, Kevin Dallas, General Manager Windows Embedded at Microsoft, confirmed there will be a next version of Windows Embedded Compact, to be released in the second half of 2012. Even though Windows 8 will have ARM support and even though the next version of Windows Embedded Standard will most likely be based upon the Windows 8 bits, having a separate, light weight and hard real-time operating system makes a lot of sense. Especially if you take a look at Kevin’s vision of intelligent systems that are built from different building blocks, amongst which of course also embedded systems with a variety of different footprints and form factors.

The announcement that there will be a Windows Embedded Compact v.next is great news for everybody who is currently working on solution based on Windows Embedded Compact. It means that you can safely continue to invest in knowledge around Windows Embedded Compact. It also means that Windows Embedded Compact will make use of Visual Studio 2010 in its next version and that Windows CE will be amongst us for at least another 15 years, probably even longer.