Today marks the 14th anniversary of the RTM of Windows Pegasus, better known as Windows CE 1.0.

After the release, a hand full of MIPS based devices were first to market within a matter of weeks, including the first appearances of the MobilePro line from NEC. By the end of Q1 in 1997 Hewlett Packard followed up hedging their bets on the rival SuperH 3 (SH3).

14 years later neither player remains in the market while both processors have succumbed to the dominance of ARM based and increasingly IA32 (colloquially 'x86') based instruction sets.

Despite the shifting focus onto the Pocket PC and now SmartPhone OS, Windows CE is still with us and Microsoft continues to innovate for the platform.

A social commentary of the last 14 years might choose to highlight that although Windows CE is very much an out of sight product here at the end of 2010. It has survived where others such as Newton, PalmOS and increasingly Symbian have failed into a distant memory.

Happy birthday Windows CE.