With thanks to ZSX on the forums

After seven and a half years of telling new Windows CE users that "CE" was not in fact a shortening of Windows Compact Edition, Microsoft's Embedded Systems Group - or at least their marketing people - have decided to shake-up their product naming conventions and back-track to where most new users thought we were already! Confused?

This is not the first time that Microsoft have massaged the brand names for their embedded systems products; NT Embedded became XP Embedded, Pocket PC 2002 turned into Windows Mobile 2002 in the back-product catalogue over-night and Windows CE became Windows Embedded CE with the release of core version 6.0.
As of Windows "CE" 7.0, the line will become known as "Windows Embedded Compact". The change has been made to facilitate an integration strategy for all Embedded system products so that the old distinctions between XP embedded and CE are replaced with architectural marketing paradigms.

This means that with CE celebrating its twelfth birthday later this year, the name-lineage at least will come to an abrupt end, although the product itself continues to go from strength to strength. Microsoft have also announced the availability of a new processional certification exam for "CE", Exam 70-571 which will be available from the 5th May 2008 and is designed to certify budding developers in Microsoft Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Application Development.

View: Microsoft PressPass