IMHO
January 16, 1998
John Swenson
MSDN Online
If you're a Windows developer who has yet to try creating software for Windows CE, you probably haven't kept up with all the news pouring out of Microsoft about this new platform. There's been a lot to follow in the past month and it's going to get even busier. Here's a summary of the news most likely to interest Windows developers.
The biggest news came in early January at the Consumer Electronics Show, when Microsoft unveiled the Palm-sized PC (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsce/palmpc/) and Auto PC (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsce/autopc/), and announced that 55 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) are developing 260 applications for the three different types of PC Companion products (the Handheld PC [http://www.microsoft.com/windowsce/hpc/], Palm-sized PC, and Auto PC.)
If you're like most Windows developers, you're probably more interested in what tools are available for this new platform than you are in new hardware devices. To learn what's happening on the tools front, I talked to Randy Kath, group manager for Windows CE tools. The timing was good, since I learned that Kath's team has just completed three major new Windows CE toolkits and sent them to manufacturing (see the Microsoft Windows CE Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsce/developer/ for more information, or check out the toolkit documentation in the MSDN Library, Tools and Technologies bin):
All are add-ons to the full desktop version of the corresponding member of the Microsoft Visual Tools family. (A Microsoft Windows CE Toolkit for Visual J++ 1.1 is still under development and due out later this quarter.)
The Windows CE tools team isn't ready to divulge all the features in each of these new products, since the marketing folks want to save some surprises for the product launch. But the toolkits will be available for anyone to use in just a few weeks. Microsoft plans to launch the new Windows CE toolkits and provide full details at the Software Development '98 trade show (see the Software Development '98 Conference Expo Web site at http://www.sd98.com/) in San Francisco, February 10–12.
The new Windows CE Toolkit for Visual Basic 5.0 should appeal to the largest number of Windows developers, Kath says. Now the legions of Visual Basic developers can use their knowledge of Visual Basic and Win32 to create new applications for Windows CE, with a minimum of learning required. The Visual Basic toolkit is able to shield developers from the complexities of the new platform, such as the dozen different processors that power various CE hardware products. (Developers who use the Windows CE Toolkits for Visual Basic or Visual J++ don't have to tailor their applications for different processors.)
Developers who want to dig into Windows CE a bit more deeply can use the Windows CE Toolkit for Visual C++. This toolkit lets them tackle more ambitious projects, such as creating ActiveX controls optimized for specific embedded CPUs or processors. (You can't build ActiveX controls for Windows CE using the Visual Basic toolkit, since that toolkit doesn't support compiling.)
It's Microsoft's job to support the growing family of CE processors and test CE applications, making sure they are able to run on every processor, Kath says. He goes on to say that Microsoft accepts this responsibility because it wants to minimize the amount of development CE developers must do for the different CE processor types.
As the CE platform expands, shielding application developers from the different processor types will become even more important. "We've got at least a dozen processors we now support. By the end of this year, it's likely to be about 30," Kath predicts.
Only a small number of these processors will be used in the PC Companion devices that most Windows CE developers are targeting. The other processors will go into a wide range of other embedded systems, showing up in everything from computerized VCRs to industrial washing machines. (See the article, "Windows CE for Washing Machines? Well, Not Yet.") These are of concern mainly to developers using the Windows CE Embedded Toolkit for Visual C++.
Windows CE allows Microsoft to reach out to a whole new base of developers, since the operating system is designed for embedded developers who don't come from the PC software world.
The biggest target for Windows CE, however, remains the estimated 4.6 million developers creating desktop and server Windows applications today. Microsoft is relying on them to create the bulk of the applications required to fill out the Windows CE platform and stimulate new hardware and software markets. To entice Windows developers to try Windows CE, Microsoft is offering them modified subsets of the tools and technologies they already know, such as Microsoft Win32, Visual Basic, and Visual C++.
"What we've really done is enable developers to start writing software beyond the desktop and still use Win32," Kath says. He and his team hope the new round of Windows CE toolkits due out this month will spark an explosion of new software for H/PCs, Palm-sized PCs, and Auto PCs. "I'd like to challenge developers," he says, "by asking them 'What kinds of new applications can you build?'"
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