Microsoft’s Future of Enterprise Handheld Devices: Windows Embedded Handheld roadmap announced.

Today, during Motorola’s launch event for its ES400
enterprise digital assistant (EDA) in New York, Ballmer announced that
Microsoft is making several key investments in the enterprise handheld device
market, including the new Windows Embedded Handheld brand. “These releases will
provide proven management and security functionality, while giving customers
confidence that investments in handheld enterprise devices and line-of-business
applications will be protected over time by an extended support life cycle,”
Ballmer said.

Today, Windows Embedded handheld will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5, developers will use Visual Studio 2008 to develop Windows Forms based solutions ontop of the .NET Compact Framework for this platform. In H2, 2011, the platform will be updated to Windows Embedded Compact 7, enabling developers to create Silverlight and XNA solutions using Visual Studio 2010.