All your spyplane are belong to us
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Microsoft cancels its 'Kin phone
STUMBLING SOFTWARE GIANT Microsoft's Kin smartphone for kidz is DOA and the company has cancelled it before its European launch.
The Vole's attempt to please 'kool yoofs' apparently has failed spectacularly. Its Kin mobile phone, formerly known as 'Project Pink', was all, like, modded to the max with social notworking features and all that.
Microsoft had been working on the phone project that became Kin for, like, well, a rather long time, and with its failure has seen tens of millions or more in development and marketing money go up in smoke.
Top dog at the Vole's mobile division, Andy Lees, was forced to email a statement yesterday, saying that the firm will pop a cap in Kin. According to Reuters, Microsoft is combining its Kin gang with its Windows Phone 7 Series team and will sell the rest of the units in the US if it can unload them.
"We will continue to work with Verizon in the U.S. to sell current Kin phones," said Microsoft as reported by Reuters.
That could take some time. Online factoids suggest that Microsoft sold only 500 of the things and portents of doom appeared when Verizon slashed Kin handset prices over the weekend.
Analysts say Kin has been dismissed by mobile phone buyers in the hugely competitive US market where Apple, Google and RIM have succeeded. µ
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Long live the ... just about anything else, really.
Maybe Microsoft should adopt Android...
Sadly, another fail for MS...
...but a stunning win for the Inq with this byline "‘Kin hell for Yoof phone innit" Hahaha luvvit!!!
Microsoft's "also-ran" business philosophy -- ie: see what has been successfully and profitably implemented by other businesses and copy it -- only seems to work if they pump billions into shoring up their copycat products.
The Xbox 360 seems to be a good example of this, generating phenomenal losses due to being sold at a loss combined with rampant RROD failures. But the company pushed it through with gobs of raw money, and the "good consumers" responded to all the marketing hype by sending some of their hard-earned dollars to Microsoft.
Same goes for "Bing" -- Microsoft actually had to pay people to use it (and may be paying Apple to stick it on its products). But is seems the Microsoft cash cows funding this type of "financial marketing" are beginning to running a little dry. The list of cancelled Microsoft money-pits is growing in size.
I don't see how someone would consider buying a Microsoft product with their track record of abandoning products and leaving their customers in a lurch, and IMHO this extends to their PC software as well. Open source seems to be obsolescence-proof, much cheaper, and more secure and reliable than Microsoft's offerings.
R2D2 here,
MS says "valuable lessons learned." I laughed so hard a resistor blew out of my nose. What is MS thinking? Oh, they aren't. MS Kin was a F A I L from the word go. Just one look at that device said "Run" to earthlings who know my Droids. Wise up MS! My Droids are being made by the millions on Tatooine. The Force is with us!
Droids rule. You heard it here from R2D2
But like General Motors it may stumble along indefinitely.
However, as always, there may be more here than meets the eye. A product launch "failure" isn't necessarily a failure in business terms: they may use these flops to reduce taxes, and might also funnel "R&D" money into pet projects and have a fine time at it. The scope for perfidy and cheating the system is really without limit once you slip the bonds of conscience, and it's also played as a *game* by people who are assured of luxury a 1000 times over. Won't even surprise me if M$ goes bankrupt, after all its cash is siphoned to offshore banks, and then runs to the gov't to be bailed out.
Don't forget PlayReady (TM) as another top notch MS technology achievement.
Not only does playready break TV encoding on cutting edge video cards on high end systems...but premium channels are unwatchable!
So if MS can't even get something as simple as TV watching right- forget about making a phone that actually works...
If you like watching these Microsoft phone devices fail, the next failure on the calendar after Kin will be Windows Phone 7.
Microsoft calls Windows Phone 7 the "cousin" of Kin. The 2 have their destinies entwined.
Both suffer from immaturity, lack of features, high price, and an customer base that really only want to own an iPhone.
Now let me count all the Microsoft failures so far...
PlaysForSure (music devices aimed at iPod)
*Zune (also aimed at iPod)
*Zune HD (failed)
*Windows Mobile (failed)
*Now the Kin (failed)
It's kind of fun to watch.