Over the decades, Microsoft has been catering to the needs of not only household users but that of offices and industries as well. The company has successfully released specialized enterprise versions of almost all their operating systems until date. Well, there is another genre of OS platform as well from Microsoft. Commonly known as embedded operating systems, these are computing platforms developed to function within a specialized device/machine for executing specific tasks. For e.g. ATMs and kiosks. And now with the development of several task-oriented Windows 8 versions, the industrial sector too gets a boon.
In this post, the Windows 8 help crew gives you a comprehensive account on the Windows Embedded 8 edition, which is all set to revolutionize the use of devices and machines in the industrial sector.
The Intelligent Systems Vision
As regarding embedded operating systems, Microsoft’s vision is to enable a world of “intelligent systems”, by means of which organizations can effectively connect devices to networks and tap user experience data. As experts point out, Microsoft’s large-scale reliance on servers and cloud systems is integrally part of their plans to develop advanced embedded systems. Thanks to such efforts, the Windows Embedded 8 Standard and Windows Embedded Pro are now available to device manufacturers and other end users.
Alike its predecessors, Windows Embedded 8 offers UI, security and management capabilities for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Thus, OE manufacturers now have a better platform for developing smarter devices and machines for industries such as retail, healthcare and banking.
The New Enterprise Features
Recent reports reveal that Microsoft has been developing some additional enterprise functions for Windows embedded devices. The application side-loading capability and the lock-down feature of the AppLocker program are some of those new features. Well, keep in mind that these features are part of selected Windows 8 versions, and that they are just being incorporated into embedded platforms.
Going by the announcement of Microsoft’s senior product manager David Wurster, the embedded version of Windows 8 would have a subset of the features that are part of its basic versions. Functionalities that have been made part of Windows Embedded 8 include lockdown capability, write filters, keyboard filters and gesture filters – just to name a few.
