Mobile Strategy Splits

A platform for mobile devices called Windows Embedded Handheld (WEH) will be built on and use the same tools as Windows Mobile 6.5, a current platform for smartphones and other types of devices. In the second half of 2011, Microsoft will release a second version of WEH based on Windows Embedded Compact 7, which is the next version of the low-level embedded OS formerly called Windows CE, on which all of Microsoft’s other mobile platforms are built. WEH will give enterprises that use Windows Mobile devices for tasks such as remote data entry a possible migration path for their existing custom or commercial applications.

WEH was announced by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the launch of Motorola’s new Enterprise Digital Assistant (EDA) in June 2010. The announcement splits Microsoft’s mobile strategy among two platforms: Windows Phone 7, announced earlier in 2010, is a smartphone platform for consumers with a strictly defined user interface, application programming model, and hardware requirements, and which is not backward-compatible with Windows Mobile. WEH appears to be a more flexible general-purpose platform for building other types of mobile devices that need to run corporate line-of-business applications and may be compatible with existing Windows Mobile applications.