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That is correct. But you mentioned Windows Mobile, so I presumed by “back to square one” you meant WM 6.5 -> WP 7.0 transition. They indeed replaced the OS ker
by Const-me 10y ago
That is correct. But you mentioned Windows Mobile, so I presumed by “back to square one” you meant WM 6.5 -> WP 7.0 transition.
They indeed replaced the OS kernel while transitioning from WP7 to WP8.
However, they inherited the rest of tech things from WP7. Both .NET and Silverlight were almost same as in WP7, they released the new non-Silverlight UI platform later with WP 8.1 update.
Same applies to GUI design, marketplace and other online services. They even inherited non-tech things as well, i.e. logo and branding.
You see, at no point they were starting things from scratch. Instead, they released new generations of products largely based on the stuff they already had developed and tested.