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People are upvoting it, so I guess it's appropriate enough ;-) But I feel your first part is a legit question. As a Linux user I can't answer for myself (only

People are upvoting it, so I guess it's appropriate enough ;-) But I feel your first part is a legit question. As a Linux user I can't answer for myself (only reason to use Windows are games and SigmaStudio). However, a lot of our customers in the embedded world seem to prefer Windows. Not sure that's because their IDEs are Windows only or just because they're used to it or because management forces them or because other reasons...

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
Depends if you’re talking about CE or NT. Until very recently (2016+), a lot of us were assuming Microsoft was still committed to maintaining CE as an OS for things like handheld RFID scanners, train conductor ticket machines, etc - because all the companies that had CE-based applications didn’t want to have to rewrite them for Android or iOS. And the reason they were using CE in the first place was because Linux was not a viable option for SH3/ARM/MIPS-based low-power GUI/screen-driven devices - back in 2001-2010. Microsoft made CE integration and deployment easy with their Platform Builder tools - building your own Linux district for an embedded application is a job in itself. Now that NT runs well on ARM, and that SH3 and MIPS are dead in the handheld space, Microsoft is pitching NT as a replacement for CE in certain use-cases - but no-one is pretending Windows 10 “IoT” or LTSB is suitable for batter-powered devices. And the mismanagement of the Windows Phone 10 platform especially leaves MS in an awkward situation where they can’t serve the best customers you can get: large enterprises looking for a long-term supported platform - who have no problem with MS’ relative lock-in; who now have to switch to non-phone Android handhelds and switch from .NET on CE to JVM on Linux - and they won’t want to do this again for a long time (decades?) - Microsoft did untold long-term damage to their viability as an enterprise solutions provider by abandoning CE. Smh. (Okay, Android is one option - another is QNX (other platforms like VxWorks aren’t really used for LoB applications). I wager most devs would prefer Android over QNX out of familiarity though - especially as I imagine most devs under 30 (35?) today have dabbled with writing their own smartphone app.
- archi42 6y ago
  That's genuinely interesting, thanks :) I actually meant most of our customers are running Windows on their workstations, on which they develop embedded systems. Due to selection bias (our target audience are "safety critical embedded" devs), they can not use Windows CE (or for that matter Linux) as a product platform. I'd literally expect people to die if they did ;-) And yeah, it's more like 35. Android/iOS isn't that new anymore ;)

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago

Depends if you’re talking about CE or NT. Until very recently (2016+), a lot of us were assuming Microsoft was still committed to maintaining CE as an OS for things like handheld RFID scanners, train conductor ticket machines, etc - because all the companies that had CE-based applications didn’t want to have to rewrite them for Android or iOS. And the reason they were using CE in the first place was because Linux was not a viable option for SH3/ARM/MIPS-based low-power GUI/screen-driven devices - back in 2001-2010. Microsoft made CE integration and deployment easy with their Platform Builder tools - building your own Linux district for an embedded application is a job in itself. Now that NT runs well on ARM, and that SH3 and MIPS are dead in the handheld space, Microsoft is pitching NT as a replacement for CE in certain use-cases - but no-one is pretending Windows 10 “IoT” or LTSB is suitable for batter-powered devices. And the mismanagement of the Windows Phone 10 platform especially leaves MS in an awkward situation where they can’t serve the best customers you can get: large enterprises looking for a long-term supported platform - who have no problem with MS’ relative lock-in; who now have to switch to non-phone Android handhelds and switch from .NET on CE to JVM on Linux - and they won’t want to do this again for a long time (decades?) - Microsoft did untold long-term damage to their viability as an enterprise solutions provider by abandoning CE. Smh. (Okay, Android is one option - another is QNX (other platforms like VxWorks aren’t really used for LoB applications). I wager most devs would prefer Android over QNX out of familiarity though - especially as I imagine most devs under 30 (35?) today have dabbled with writing their own smartphone app.

archi42 6y ago
That's genuinely interesting, thanks :) I actually meant most of our customers are running Windows on their workstations, on which they develop embedded systems. Due to selection bias (our target audience are "safety critical embedded" devs), they can not use Windows CE (or for that matter Linux) as a product platform. I'd literally expect people to die if they did ;-) And yeah, it's more like 35. Android/iOS isn't that new anymore ;)