Windows Mobile 6 breaks down barriers and creates new opportunities for developers

In previous releases of Windows Mobile, Microsoft has broken down barriers for developers in a number of ways. With Windows Mobile 5.0, we unified the set of APIs between touch and non-touch screen devices. We also added features to touch screen devices that were long requested, like soft keys and persistent storage.

For quite some time, there have been certain restrictions imposed on the Windows Mobile application ecosystem by the nature of its developer platform. Developers were able to bring solutions to market quickly and easily with the power of .NET Compact Framework 2.0, but often that framework was not shipping in ROM on mass market devices. The same was true of the portable database for Windows Mobile powered devices, SQL Server Compact Edition, which also needed to be installed after the fact, taking up valuable storage space.

Windows Mobile 6: Focus on developers

With the launch of Windows Mobile 6, we continue to focus on the developer experience by shipping .NET Compact Framework 2.0 SP1 and SQL Server Compact Edition in ROM. This achievement removes the need for developers to ship the 7 megabyte libraries within their application CAB file. All this is done while still ensuring compatibility with .NET CF 1.0 applications. In addition, having SQL Server Compact Edition in ROM benefits any Enterprise developers looking for a security-enhanced, fully-relational database with merge replication on the device. Beyond adding existing technologies to ROM, Windows Mobile 6 also delivers new APIs for developers including WISP Lite. WISP Lite is the inking engine ported from the Tablet PC and is completely new to Windows Mobile. WISP supports basic recognition, serialization, overlay & zoom among other things. WISP data can be serialized as image files for transporting via email, or stored in a binary format compatible with Tablet PC applications.

Windows Mobile 6 is actually based on the Windows CE 5.0 kernel and memory architecture. The memory layout for CE 1.0 through CE 5.0 limits the operating system to running a maximum of 32 processes with each process running in a 32MB virtual address space. This limitation can be an issue on Windows Mobile devices that allow for 3rd party applications to be installed. The CE 6.0 release now allows for up to 32,768 processes running at one time, and each process runs within a 2GB Virtual Address space. Also new with CE 6.0 is the concept of a kernel mode driver model (user mode drivers are also supported). Even though the current release of Windows Mobile is based on the Windows CE 5.0 kernel, it's expected that the underlying changes mentioned above will be coming to Windows Mobile sometime soon.

MEDC: May 1st, Las Vegas

With all that said, we continue to acknowledge the need for some developer shops to learn more about how to successfully navigate the business chain of the mobile industry. That's why at this year's Mobile and Embedded Conference, we've added a set of sessions focused on business, market opportunity, and partners. With sessions on everything from a panel discussion with mobile operators entitled "Getting on the Deck," to our very popular Mobile Operator and OEM Speed Dating event, this year's MEDC is one not to miss.

To learn more about developing for Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded, be sure to attend the Mobile and Embedded Developer Conference. MEDC kicks off May 1st, 2007 at The Venetian in Las Vegas, and then sets out on a world tour to eight other countries. For more information, including a full list of breakout and lab sessions being presented at the conference, visit http://medc2007.com.