Okay, I think I understand where the misunderstanding is.
At this point in time, MDM in Windows Mobile was through Exchange ActiveSync (as rudimentary as it was by today’s standards). Guess what Windows Phone used initially? Exchange ActiveSync. But MDM would continue to evolve going forward much like it would on iOS.
Apple’s first go with MDM on iOS was in iOS 2 with… Exchange ActiveSync. Interestingly, Terry Myerson was still part of Exchange when that happened. Meaning this would have been right before the shakeup.
Windows Mobile 7 never released, meaning there were no devices to prepare for or deploy. Final retail devices would have taken months to arrive after RTM as the manufacturers need time to do final internal validation and fixes (not to mention request critical fixes from Microsoft if needed), and get through carrier validation tests. So device orders for those in the company that got devices from IT would have been in Spring after a Fall RTM. And there weren’t any major changes in the OS for IT to adopt at the time. Those would be in the Windows Phone 8 era I believe as MDM evolved, as Exchange ActiveSync was already configured and “self-service” in many ways.
Ultimately, the ship changed directions before IT would have been involved for the sort of deployment you are thinking of, and wouldn’t have been aware of the devices in the pipe that got canceled.
Also, Windows Phone 7 was never a full rewrite, that wouldn’t have been possible in 18 months (one release cycle). Both Windows Mobile 7 and Windows Phone 7 were built on the same core (Windows CE), and much of the lower level work that was specific to phones survived as well (the UI clearly didn’t, and there was a lot of work evolving things like the SDK). A lot of folks on lower level teams were still evolving the platform.
This isn’t much different from how iOS uses Darwin, or iOS 7‘s UI refresh didn’t change everything for management or core functionality.
EDIT: When I talk about “the org” in this context, I’m referring to the engineering org that made up Windows Mobile / Windows CE. It’s not really right to call it a “team”, due to the sheer size of it. Everyone you see in the parade video that’s participating is an engineer, an engineer in test (a title since retired), a project manager, a team lead, or a general manager.
