Win CE 6.0 to be launched Nov 1, 2006

[Bob Russell]

Microsoft is marching forward with it's embedded operating systems. Win CE (which is what Windows Mobile OS is based on) is launching a new version 6.0 on Nov 1, 2006.

According to the blog of Microsoft's Mike Hall, "CE 6.0 Launch Date has been announced... for November 1st 2006 8am PST - note that this... is an online event, partly 'live', with a keynote given by Craig Mundie, Chief Research & Strategy Officer, Microsoft and then a number of 'On Demand' sessions and labs."

Win CE 6.0 was code named Yamazaki because ,"at Windows CE 4.0 the o/s team and tools teams merged together to form a new, combined team - the codenames for the operating system and tools also changed at this time from trees/tools to <drumroll>Whiskeys</drumroll> - so the codenames for Windows CE 4.0 onwards are as follows.

* Windows CE 4.0 - Talisker (Jan 2002)
* Windows CE 4.1 - Jameson (Jun 2002)
* Windows CE 4.2 - McKendric (Apr 2003)
* Windows CE 5.0 - Macallan (Aug 2004)
o Windows CE 5.0 Network Device Feature Pack - Tomatin (Apr 2006)
* Windows CE 6.0 - Yamazaki (Sep 2006)"

Pocket PC Thoughts says the Windows Mobile group is probably ready to incorporate this into a future release, and that it will help prevent out of memory problems, provide better performance by moving some processes into the kernel, and a different kind of driver model. This is just the plumbing, of course, and all the really splashy features will only show up when we see the next version of Windows Mobile.

More information is available at the launch site and the Windows CE Home Page.