BOSTON — At the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) here on Wednesday (Sept. 23), Kevin Dallas, general manager of Microsoft's Embedded Division, announced a series of new products, including the release to manufacturing of Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3.

Microsoft touts it as "the next-generation platform of the componentized, real-time Windows Embedded CE operating system."

Included in the release is the CE 6.0 R3 release is the Silverlight for Windows Embedded user interface framework. Silverlight is intended to make it easier for OEMs to provide a rich interface, and provides a connection to Windows 7-based PCs through Windows 7 Device Stage and Connection Manager.

Dallas claimed that the CE release was aimed at three distinct sets of users: developers, devices operators (also known as OEMs) and end users.

Like many here at ESC, Microsoft is touting the coming plethora of connected devices (some estimates say 15 billion devices by the year 2015). Those devices will likely connect to the "cloud" of future computing. Dallas stressed "the need to be able to connect securely, while meeting the needs of the IT departments."

Examples of products OEMs will design with the OS are smartphones, netbooks, specialty devices and other embedded platforms. Microsoft hopes they all connect using Win CE.

In addition to Silverlight, Win CE 6.0 R3 ships with Visual Studio, Expression Blend and Internet Explorer Embedded. The combination of products is intended to enable such capabilities as panning and zoom and touch-and-gesture input to improve the user's Web browsing experience.

Dallas also said more preconfigured solutions were in the works as Microsoft increases its investment in developer services for future products. The hope here is to reduce time to market.