# Roadmap for Windows mobile devices that are not primarily phones

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roadmap-for-windows-mobile-devices-that-are-not-primarily-phones/584071>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 2, 2011, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roadmap-for-windows-mobile-devices-that-are-not-primarily-phones/584071 "2011-06-02T11:01:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roadmap-for-windows-mobile-devices-that-are-not-primarily-phones/584071/1 "2011-06-02T11:01:16Z")

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Windows Mobile is a popular OS for non-phone devices such as data capture terminals. At present, all of the offerings on the market seem to top out at v6.5.

As I understand it. Windows Mobile 7 is quite a phone-centric OS, and is a different animal to those in the Windows CE stable.

So what’s the roadmap for data capture terminals in future? I presume WM6.5 won’t stay around for ever without stagnation. Is there a business/corporate/utility build of WM7?

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**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roadmap-for-windows-mobile-devices-that-are-not-primarily-phones/584071/2 "2011-06-02T12:57:05Z")

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Windows Mobile is dead and good riddance. Windows Embedded Compact is the CE-based successor to WM. Windows Phone 7 is also based on Windows CE but with a different user interface on top of it.

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roadmap-for-windows-mobile-devices-that-are-not-primarily-phones/584071/3 "2011-06-02T20:18:30Z")

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Thanks for that (and I agree with the sentiment). I didn’t realise Phone 7 was CE-based - thought they’d re-engineered the whole architecture. That’s interesting…

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**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roadmap-for-windows-mobile-devices-that-are-not-primarily-phones/584071/4 "2011-06-03T01:23:19Z")

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> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> Thanks for that (and I agree with the sentiment). I didn’t realise Phone 7 was CE-based - thought they’d re-engineered the whole architecture. That’s interesting…

welp, CE is the underlying kernel and system bits; the stuff on top (user interface APIs and the like) are all new. for all intents and purposes, from a user standpoint they pretty much did re-engineer the whole thing.

**ETA:** and to confuse things further, Windows Embedded **Standard** is _not_ based on CE, rather it’s a version of XP that can be stripped apart into components based on what the implementer needs.