

How Microsoft killed the Kin - dot
http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/30/what-killed-the-kin/

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ajg1977
"Steven Sinofsky -- president of the Windows and Windows Live groups -- is
making a play for the entire mobile division as well in an attempt to bring a
unified, Windows-centric product line to market"

Because that's why Windows Mobile has been shedding market share - it's not
been "Windows centric" enough.

I wonder how many painful years it will take before companies figure out that
people don't want a Windows-family, or Apple-family, or Google-family set of
devices or services. Personally, I just want to be able to pick the devices,
websites and services I want and have them operate reasonably well together.

That is why Android is so appealing to me. Or it would be if only they had
decent media playing/syncing, which is the one thing the "device families"
actually seem to do well :/

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awa
It would be interesting to see if Sinofsky does pick up Windows mobile, he has
been attributed in large part with success of Office 2007 and was pulled to do
Windows 7 after the Vista fiasco, so he has 2 good back to back performances.

Many believe he is the current natural successor to Ballmer but don't quote me
on that.

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pavs
I want to think of something positive about MSFT but I can't find anything.
Can anyone remember the last time MSFT innovated something (not followed an
existing market/paradigm) and led the market by sheer quality of the
innovation (not because of monopoly)?

The only product that I can think of is Xbox360.

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WalterGR
_Can anyone remember the last time MSFT innovated something (not followed an
existing market/paradigm) and led the market by sheer quality of the
innovation (not because of monopoly)?_

I can't remember the last time any tech company created a market/paradigm and
then proceeded to lead it [1]. Can you think of any companies?

[1] Presumably you meant for some particular measure of time.

~~~
hga
FPGAs by Xilinx starting in 1985?

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jsz0
_This move allegedly set the release of the devices back 18 months_

This sure says a lot about the crazy pace of the SmartPhone market. I picked
up my iPhone 2G the other day and had the sense of nostalgia typically
reserved for things like my Apple 2, NES, Atari ST, etc. 18 months might as
well be a decade with the current pace of innovation.

~~~
danudey
To put it into a specific timeframe, 18 months ago was approximately 6 months
after the iPhone 3G's launch (and 6 months before the 3GS). In fact, that puts
it right around Christmas 2008.

Wow. They could have launched that Christmas. That's around when the first
Blackberry Storm came out too. It feels like forever and a day ago.

They could have been on their second generation by now. Instead, they bungled
it.

I wonder how much the project cost them.

~~~
InclinedPlane
It's not just about the fact that this particular project cost them a
significant delay, it's the fact that they are operating on time schedules
which are wholly inconsistent with the pace of the market at the moment.

Apple, Google, RIM, and maybe even soon HP (via their PalmPre acquisitions)
are all well inside WinMo's OODA loop. Not just inside it a little bit, but
running laps. You can't survive in this market with an 18 month _release
cycle_ , let alone a release cycle so long that 18 months is just a fraction
of it. Even if MS manages by herculean effort to come out with a high-quality,
highly innovative winmo 7 release they'll still be dead in the water due to
the ability of every other competitor to iterate N times over between then and
the next winmo release sometime in 2015. Step 1 in the winmo division should
be making every effort toward a much, much shorter ship cycle otherwise they
have no chance.

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JunkDNA
This is what is so sad about MS. At some point they forgot they are a software
company, and started thinking they were a Windows company. They are imposing a
requirement on themselves that competitors don't have.

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hop
Still doesn't explain why they would bring a shitty product to market and
spend millions promoting it. Truly think Ballmer has no shame and doesn't get
embarrassed. Its npt like the phones didnt come across his desk. MicroSoft
needs a general for a CEO that can bring everything together, know what a
great product is, focuses R&D, and ships products people love.

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rbanffy
> know what a great product is,

Microsoft has long lost this ability. Too much Kool-Aid, IMHO.

They really believe they are a cool company.

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thirdsun
While those devices could have been appealing to teenagers - at least in
combination with a cheap data plan - i really don't understand why microsoft
wanted to go into that niche market with a stripped down OS that shares some
interface similarities with its big brother windoes mobile 7. Add those
experimental devices and the average, non-geeky customer, which this is
clearly aimed at, is totally confused. We, of course, know that this isn't WM
7, but the average Joe who read 4 lines of text about WM 7 in some magazine
could easily assume that this is microsofts next big thing, which of course it
isn't. It just feels so unnecessary, dead before it launched.

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danh
> the average, non-geeky customer is totally confused

I must be average and non-geeky then. I'm totally confused by Microsofts
mobile strategy.

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gojomo
_It seems that after doing some initial work on these phones based around
Danger's proprietary Sidekick OS, Andy Lees -- the SVP of Microsoft's mobile
division -- instructed everyone to go back to the drawing board and rebuild
the OS based on Windows CE. It appears the company didn't want a project that
wasn't directly connected to its Windows kernel. This move allegedly set the
release of the devices back 18 months, during which time Redmond's carrier
partner became increasingly frustrated with the delays. Apparently when it
came time to actually bring the Kins to market, Big Red had soured on the deal
altogether and was no longer planning to offer the bargain-basement pricing
deals it first had tendered._

The strategy tax kills again!

~~~
hga
It's generally call the platform tax I thought.

BTW, the original Sidekick OS is based on NetBSD.

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rodh257
18 months ago the kin would have been more well received. Particularly at a
lower price point.

~~~
rbanffy
A dumbphone? Not even 18 months ago. They would have to launch this in 2005
for it to have a chance.

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potatolicious
A dumbphone with a few select (and highly refined) features from the
smartphone, but with dumbphone pricing (plans _and_ hardware) could have done
well then.

Hell, it can still do well now. Imagine a facebooking, tweeting feature phone
that costs you $20 a month to operate. It would be a huge hit.

~~~
rbanffy
The Kin has the hardware of a smartphone and costs the same to manufacture.
Still, it has dumbed down functionality. It would have to be sold at a huge
subsidy and it's unclear how much of the $20/month would actually be profit.

Anyway, there is a hole in the market for aggressive bandwidth management on
smartphones.

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Aaronontheweb
I should note that as of this evening Microsoft was still running Kin ads on
Hulu.

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bitwize
Good riddance.

The Kin was the Hip-e of smartphones.

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sliverstorm
I was pretty sure the death of the Kin was due to the horrid advertisements
they aired.

