The Return of the Microsoft Kin 92
symbolset writes "In a surprising turn of events, Engadget is reporting that the Microsoft Kin One and Kin Two will have an encore in the market. Some years ago Microsoft purchased Danger, Inc, services provider for the legendary Sidekick line of phones, and set upon refreshing them for a new generation in 'Project Pink.' Several project restarts and one data loss incident later, the project had lost favor internally and relations with the launch carrier Verizon had gone sour. The product was launched anyway to dismal sales and yanked from the market in under two months. According to the article, the costly data plan was thought to be to blame for the poor sales, so cellular data services and features that require them have been removed."
Competition (Score:4, Interesting)
Amazing how Microsoft can release multiple devices that partly compete against each other... you could see someone considering a WP7 phone for the social aspects, then saying "well the Kin is cheaper, and I can do some social things on it so good enough."
Deflating the Kin (Score:3, Interesting)
so cellular data services and features that require them have been removed.
Then the article closes with:
Seriously, who wants a Kin without the unlimited photo uploads?
I thought the entire point of the Kin was that you could connect to social networking services from anywhere. Removing that ability cripples the phone. But let us suppose that they aer right: buyers want to save money by only using those features when they are connected to WiFi. So be it - no hardware or software changes are required to do that.
Seems to me that a better option would be to take the Kin functionality and sell a Kin app for Windows 7. Or bundle it. But as the article points out, this may just be a way to unload the hardware backlog.
Re:They better be renaming it (Score:3, Interesting)
Then they'll count Kin sales for both the mobile and console peripheral markets.
Re:Plan B after WinPhone 7 bombed? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They better be renaming it (Score:3, Interesting)
With the Kin, I think the biggest problem was that they were aiming it at a market which doesn't exist and they gave up before it did. The way that Apple came to be so closely linked to portable music is that they waited until the market formed, then ripped off the interface from Creative, slapped on a different input scheme and made it white. After that it was marketing from there on out.
Re:Really?? (Score:3, Interesting)
What I would like to see is a smart phone made for a baby boomer?
I don't mean a jitterbug but an actual phone with a keyboard big enough so they can see and use them so they can text their friends and go on the internet.
Not all older people are non tech savy (my parents for instance, it easier to text them then to call them.) and they have more money to spend on gadgets then a 15 year old. Why doesn't the 70 year old engineer make something he would like to use and go from there?
This is a completely untapped market...well except for the jitterbug.
Re:Really?? (Score:3, Interesting)
If he is like many of the old Cobol people I work with, he was screwing with you.
SOme of themare the most tech savey people, and the intentional screw with people in this manner.
I worked ehre two weeks, and in a dev. meeting one I asked for some source code, and they pulled out a huge ream of paper.
and I said: "Don't pull that crap with me, I know you can easily get it digitally. I'm not some noob."
They all laughed, and 2 minutes after the meeting I had a link to the source codes location.