What is the difference between Windows CE, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, Windows Smartphone (not sure about this one), Windows Mobile Standard, Windows Mobile Classic, Windows Mobile Professional, Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 8 and Windows 10 Mobile?
Windows CE - This was the base OS. The other systems up to Windows Phone 7 were actually a customization based on Windows CE.
--- .Net Compact Framework (and the beloved Basic4ppc) era --
Pocket PC - OS name until 2003.
Windows Mobile - OS name since 2003 and up to Windows Phone 7.
Smartphone - At some point they released a modified OS with phone features and without a touch screen.
Windows Mobile Standard - A year later they decided that it is better to name the non-touch screen phones Windows Mobile Standard.
Windows Mobile Classic - The non-phone touch screen devices.
Windows Mobile Professional - Touch screen + phone devices.
(I think that no one knew the differences between the above three except their marketing team and myself.)
--- End of .Net CF era ---
Windows Phone 7 - Released a year later. All previous applications and devices were not supported.
--- Windows NT core ---
Windows Phone 8 - Released a year later. Did support Windows Phone 7 apps but the OS was completely different so new apps were no longer supported on Windows Phone 7 devices.
Windows 10 Mobile - Released a few years later. Supports the new Universal Windows Platform apps. Probably supports Windows Phone 8 apps as well. New UWP apps are of course not supported on Windows Phone 8 devices.
.Net CF was very nice and allowed running the exact same binary file on both the device and the desktop. It took Microsoft another 10 years to achieve this feature again (though it only works on Windows 10 desktops).
The bottom line is that although they were in the mobile ecosystem long before Apple and Google, their current market share is %2.5, they managed to kill Nokia along the way, they ruined Windows 8 by forcing mobile features on desktop users and the future in the mobile area doesn't look too good.
You can see from all these different names and platforms that their mobile strategy was not very clear. Not to us the developers, not to the end users and probably not to themselves.
