Microsoft's fitness band: What styles of package and services square measure inside?

Microsoft’s fitness band is also the primary device to leverage the approaching Windows ten web of Things software system, similarly as variety of spick-and-span Azure cloud services.

We know lots regarding Microsoft’s new fitness band that the corporate introduced and commenced commerce last week. However what Microsoft did not in public disclose regarding the Microsoft Band is equally fascinating.

Microsoftband OS

Take the software system within the Microsoft Band. Though Microsoft did disclose that its band options ARM Cortex M4 MCU processor, the corporate never mentioned in any of its collateral what the software system is.

A Microsoft advocate, responding to my question on whether or not there is some quite Windows ten variant within, aforementioned “there is not any OS” within the Band. “It runs on Microsoft’s wearable design (firmware), optimized for low-power micro-devices.”

The advocate superimposed that “a comprehensive SDK (software development kit) can return on-line early next year,” for the Microsoft Band.

So will that mean the new Microsoft Band falls outside Microsoft’s “One Windows” set up and is a few quite occurrence devices?

Maybe. However perhaps not.

Windows foriot

Microsoft is developing variety of Windows ten flavors of its numerous embedded Windows versions. There is a Windows ten ‘Industry’ SKU for devices like point-of-sales terminals, ATMs and kiosks. there is the Windows ten “Mobile” SKU — expected to be the combined Windows Phone and low-end pill SKU which will work on each ARM- and Intel X86-based devices, as Microsoft execs confirmed at school impotency Europe last week. There is Windows ten “Compact,” which can be the version for web of Things gateways, printers, assay instrumentation and also the like.

Code nameathens

And then there is Windows ten “Athens,” that additionally can work on ARM or X86 cost- and resource-constrained devices. Athens is based on the Windows ten common core and can support the “Universal Application “model, officers extra/ additionally confirmed in public last week at school impotency Europe. Meaning developers are able to employ abundant of their code once developing apps across totally different Windows versions and devices.

I wouldn’t be stunned if the Microsoft Band is really running Windows ten Athens. That said, at the school impotency Europe show last week, the Softies showed off a slide that created it seem like wearable’s would be running the .Net small Framework, that presently is for cost- and resource-constrained X86 (not ARM) devices. Microsoft’s goal is to bring “Modern” Windows to the present category of devices, officers aforementioned last week.

Microsoft officers shared last week some data regarding the new Microsoft Health cloud services and complementary mobile apps which will be key to the Microsoft Band. Not too astonishingly, it seems that Microsoft Health builds on variety of Azure cloud services, a corporation advocate confirmed.

Here’s the list of Azure services — a number of that square measure still in preview — that Microsoft Health is building on today:

• Application Insights


• Azure Document DB (Microsoft’s No-SQL server Service)


• Azure Reds Cache


• Azure HD Insight (Hardtop on Azure)


• Azure Service Bus


• Azure machine Scale


• Azure Storage Geo-Replication


• Azure hardware


• Azure information plant

Over time, Microsoft Health can devolve on even additional Azure services, the advocate superimposed, including:

• Event Hubs (Microsoft’s recently introduced measuring consumption and process service)


• Azure Stream Analytics (real-time stream processing)


• Azure Machine Learning

The Microsoft Band may be a prime example of however Microsoft’s web of Things vision is can manifest over time. “1Core”, the unified Windows core at the center of the approaching Windows, Phone, RT, Server, web of Things and Xbox in operation systems, is what is going to build “One Windows” less of AN aspiration and additional of a reality.

Microsoft's fitness band: What styles of package and services square measure inside?