Yesterday Microsoft announced that it would be discontinuing the KIN. The KIN was a phone Microsoft made amid towards the tween crowd. It was small cute, and seemed to work well with social media that kids in that age group would want. The KIN was only out for a month or so before this announcement the other day.
Why did the KIN fail? I think the big problem for the KIN was most parents are not going to spend $80+ a month for a single plane for their kids. Verizon just does not have cheap plans unlike T-Mobile that has planes for smart phones that you can get for $60 with no contract. The problem with that plan is you would have to pay full price for the phone and I’m sure parents are not going to pay $400 for a phone for their kids either.
So from that view KIN was doomed from the start. Another problem people had too was, what OS the KIN was running? We all know that Microsoft is coming out with Windows Phone 7. KIN form what I came to understand from watching Windows Weekly was running a stripped down version of Windows Phone 7. So KIN was not a smart phone it was a glorified feacher phone. Kind of like the T-Mobile Side Kick. That is probably because some people form that team helped make KIN.
The final thing I feel kind of killed the KIN was the ad’s for the KIN. They just never made sense to me and one kind of is a little creepy I think. There is one ad for the KIN that gets played a lot. The kid is visiting everyone in his social network and oh look he ran into his ex (turn and just walk away kid) the girl friend doesn’t seem to be too happy to see him and so he takes a photo of her and they show off the Studio and talk about that for a bit. To me this ad seems creepy. It seems Microsoft wants no one to see that ad I looked all over YouTube to find it.
I believe that the monthly charge for this phone is what killed it. Microsoft did say that the KIN team was going to now be a part of the Windows Phone 7 team. You have to think that they might take some of KIN’s strengths and put that to use in Windows Phone 7.