Microsoft has released the latest version of its Windows platform tailored for retail and point-of-sale (POS) environments.

Announced today at the National Retail Federation annual convention in the US, Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 is aimed at connecting sales terminals seamlessly with back-end servers and other infrastructure.

Based on Windows XP with Service Pack 3, the new software can be customised for specific hardware requirements and is easy to deploy and install remotely, according to Microsoft. Previous versions of the platform were known as Windows Embedded for Point of Service.

The new software boasts the familiarity of the Windows operating system and supports technologies such as Microsoft Silverlight, the .NET Framework 3.5 with Windows Presentation Foundation, Internet Explorer 7, Windows Media Player 11, Microsoft SQL Server Express and viewers for Microsoft Office documents.

Microsoft said that its Windows POS platforms have been growing strongly, and quoted figures from research firm IHL Group projecting that Windows Embedded will be the leading platform in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region by 2012.

Last year, Microsoft revealed that the next major update of the baseline Windows Embedded platform will be based on Windows 7.