Kansas City, USA and Cambridge, England – Arcom today announced that it launched a new Windows CE .NET 4.1-based Development Kit and BSP for its high performance Intel Socket 370 OLYMPUS single board computer. Arcom’s award-winning Development Kit strategy lets customers quickly develop, demonstrate and deploy Windows CE .NET 4.1-based applications using a reliable reference platform. You don’t need to build an operating system image using Platform Builder, you just download your application and go!

The OLYMPUS Windows CE .NET 4.1-based Development Kit offers a pre-loaded Windows CE .NET 4.1 image loaded into a 32Mbyte CompactFlash card. The operating system image includes a wide selection of key Windows CE .NET 4.1 components including Internet Explorer 5.5, Windows Media Audio and MP3 playback, MPEG audio and video codecs, file viewers for PDF, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word, wireless LAN and a HTTPD web server.

This comprehensive Development Kit includes the Socket 370 OLYMPUS SBC fitted with a 733MHz Intel Celeron CPU (with heatsink and fan), 256Mbyte PC133 SDRAM, 32Mbyte CompactFlash card, PSU, serial and Ethernet cable sets, Quickstart Manual and the Development Kit Utility CD. Also included is the Windows CE .NET 4.1 license and a free copy of Microsoft’s eMbedded Visual Tools C++ 4.0 CD which lets you quickly develop, debug and deploy Windows CE .NET 4.1-based applications. The Development Kit is also bundled with evaluation versions of Windows CE Platform Builder, Windows XP Embedded Target Designer and two Windows Embedded resource CDs.

“Arcom’s new development kits provide an easy-to-use platform to demonstrate the incredible range of Windows CE .NET multimedia capabilities,” said Keith White, senior director of the Embedded and Appliance Platforms Group at Microsoft Corp. “The combination of Intel Celeron/Pentium III technology and the full-featured Windows CE .NET operating system serves as an ideal platform for cost-effective multimedia information kiosks, dedicated gaming machine applications and human-machine interface panels.”

The OLYMPUS is an EBX format (5.75” x 8”) Socket 370 single board computer which can be fitted with the Intel Celeron, Pentium III and VIA C3 processors up to 1GHz (133MHz FSB). The board also offers high performance S3 ProSavage graphics, 10/100baseTx Ethernet, four serial ports, and expansion via a PCI slot, CompactFlash socket and industry standard PC/104 bus.

Arcom is a Gold-level member of the Microsoft Windows Embedded Partner (WEP) program (www.mswep.com) and is committed to the support of Windows CE .NET and Windows XP Embedded technologies to achieve rapid development for customer applications. The WEP Gold-level member status was established to enable customers to identify best-of-class companies that have demonstrated excellence in building and enabling Windows Powered solutions.

Microsoft and Windows CE are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries.

About Arcom (www.arcom.com)
Arcom, a Spectris company (LSE: SXS.L), is a leading supplier of embedded computer and communications technology to industry. Founded in 1982, Arcom has developed a broad range of standard embedded hardware and software solutions for control, data acquisition and data delivery systems. From its design centers in Kansas City and Cambridge England, Arcom is also able to offer Design Services to meet the needs of high volume OEM and specialized customer requirements.