Microsoft celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its Windows Embedded Partner Program (WEPP) by announcing the next-generation program for participating partners, building on its recent release of Windows 7 technologies to manufacturers of specialized devices with new resources for its global ecosystem.
Microsoft officials said that since the program’s inception, WEPP has grown to more than 650 partners globally, including silicon vendors, independent software vendors, systems integrators, design houses and user experience designers, independent hardware vendors, and training partners in countries such as the U.S., China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the U.K., India, Russia, Germany and France. For its anniversary, WEPP is continuing to address the evolving needs of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and partners working with Windows Embedded platforms.
Recently, Microsoft released Windows 7 technologies to OEMs of specialized devices through the Windows Embedded Standard 2011 community technology preview (CTP), release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3, and RTMs of the next-generation platforms for Windows Embedded Server and Windows Embedded Enterprise, Microsoft officials said. Microsoft also recently realigned its automotive business within Windows Embedded to capitalize on the synergies between the two business units and leverage the extended, global partner ecosystem of Windows Embedded. The current release of Microsoft Auto (version 4.1) and the next generation of Microsoft Auto, which will be announced in 2010 and is currently code-named “Motegi,” underscore Microsoft’s commitment to the market, the company said.
“The goal of the Windows Embedded Partner Program is to ensure that OEMs have strong support from our extensive ecosystem to help reduce development time and associated costs as they bring innovative Windows Embedded-based consumer and enterprise devices to market,” said Olivier Fontana, group marketing manager for Windows Embedded at Microsoft, in a statement. “Through the updates to the program, Windows Embedded will better serve its global ecosystem by providing partners with tools and information to help meet the needs of their customers during every phase of the specialized device development life cycle.”
Additional information on WEPP can be found at http://www.windowsembeddedpartners.com or the Windows Embedded Twitter and You Tube pages at @MSFTWEB and http://www.youtube.com/user/WindowsEmbedded, respectively.