Only two months after the next generation of ‘cool phones’ was announced by Microsoft, they have decided that the Kin phones are not exactly what they were hoping for and have stopped production to focus more on the redesigned Windows Phone 7 devices that are set to come about around the end of the year.
The Kin phones went completely against the grain, and tried to deliver something new to mobile phone users, aimed mainly at the youth who mostly use social networking as a way of interaction. This was pointed towards Zune music users too, and everything you did was backed up via a “cloud-based” backup feature — Microsoft Studio — which seemed pretty neat at the time.
But the Kins also seemed to lack in some areas. No calender, no third party applications, not entirely easy to use, it seemed though it was heading for an early grave, given the competition from the iPhone, BlackBerry devices and the wave of Google Android phones that are now on the market.
In the official statement, Microsoft say “We have made the decision to focus on the Windows Phone 7 launch and will not ship Kin in Europe this fall as planned. Additionally, we are integrating our Kin team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from Kin into future Windows Phone releases. We will continue to work with Verizon Wireless in the U.S. to sell current Kin phones.”
In other words, no more Kins will be manufactured once the current supplies have be acquired.
The death of the Microsoft Kin to focus more on Windows Phone 7 is now underway. Are you disappointed?
Source: USA Today
*Identifying Monetised Links - outgoing links that we monetise are marked with an '*' symbol.
