Microsoft Kin Phones Withdrawn: Phones With Shortest Lifespan
Bid Good Bye to Microsoft’s Kin. Yes, Microsoft has decided to kill its “Kin line of mobile phones”, which was revealed in April, targeted at young phone users, enchanted by online social networking. Here is what the company stated:
“We have made the decision to focus exclusively on Windows Phone 7 and we 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 in the U.S. to sell current KIN phones.”- Microsoft.
But the already existing stock would be available to the crowd and not be withdrawn from the market, according to Microsoft. The company said it will continue to work with US telecom service provider Verizon to sell the remaining Kin smart-phones.
Therefore, Kin One and Kin Two is still available, so you can have it if you want, but till the stock lasts. Both the handsets feature touch-screens and slide-out keyboards, and was manufactured by Japan’s Sharp. It was available in the United States through Verizon Wireless in May.
“I am surprised the product ever saw the light of day,” said analyst Matt Rosoff of Directions on Microsoft, a private firm devoted to tracking the US technology colossus. “I am not surprised they killed it. It made no sense for them to release Kin in the first place,” Rosoff added, “This is what they should have done all along. It seemed like the news caught even the Kin team by surprise ,” Rosoff said.
Windows Phone 7 is due for release later this year which is also keeping Microsoft busy and added to weight to logic of killing a device which was launched just two months back with huge publicity spendings.
