Bonum Certa Men Certa

Danger Assets in Danger: Summary of KIN and Sidekick Demise

Danger sign for Microsoft



Summary: The company which cost Microsoft half a billion dollars to acquire produces nothing but products that increase Microsoft's losses; we take a look at the past week's news about these

LAST WEEK we wrote about the end of "KIN", which was soon accompanied by a major blow to Sidekick. It was only days beforehand that Verizon quietly cut the prices of "KIN" (probably to clear the inventory) and another publication spoke about a next-generation "KIN" or a new offer.



Anyway, here is the troubling news coming from a Microsoft proponents and claims that Microsoft is "taking stock of redundancies":

At the recent D8 conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer questioned Google's dual strategy of building Android and Chrome OS. Two operating systems doesn't make sense, he said.

Microsoft is apparently listening to Ballmer's advice, killing off its 2-month-old Kin line of social-networking phones. The company recently confirmed to Cnet that it is not going forward with a European release of Kin and is instead folding the Kin team into its Windows Phone 7 unit.


Zune might die next. There were no headlines about "Zune" last week. "Microsoft Fails to Impress," argues one blogger who takes stock of Microsoft's latest failures:

Once again, Microsoft has a product that failed miserably. The Microsoft phone "KIN" has already been pulled from the US market, and will not be making its European launch as had been planned. The reality here is that Microsoft's only money maker is Office. Windows sells well only because of its being pre-installed on most PCs. Linux would likely do just as well were MS Office available for it. Likewise, if people did some research and found out that iWork and MS Office were available on Macintosh machines, I am willing to bet that Mac sales would escalate even higher. This isn't the first Microsoft product to fall flat on its face (the KIN sold, by some reports, only 500 devices).

KIN, Vista, ME, Bob, Zune, CE (never garnered more than 5% of the market), XP Tablet Edition


One caption reads "Microsoft's Robbie Bach showed off the Kin phone on launch day"; he left in disgrace along with Allard [1, 2, 3]. Here is some news coverage:



Here are 10 Reasons Why "Microsoft's Mobile Strategy Is a Mess" and a call for more focus, not fragmentation [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

The news about Sidekick gets covered in:



T-Mobile has announced that it will stop offering its youth-oriented Sidekick phone from Microsoft. The news comes as Microsoft and Verizon Wireless discontinued the Kin social phones. Microsoft says it is moving resources from Kin and presumably Sidekick to focus on the Windows Phone 7 series. T-Mobile promised "exciting updates" to come.


Joe Wilcox asks rhetorically, "What does it mean that KIN, Sidekick and Symbian-Guru went R.I.P. within about 24 hours?"

After just 48 days "KIN" was called off. It speaks volumes about Microsoft's situation, which Microsoft boosters sometimes attempt to embellish:



That last one is part of a pattern we've noticed. Microsoft boosters/sympathisers divert attention to something else. How about Nokia?



Mary Jo Foley blames Verizon and her friend/colleague Gavin shifts the subject to Vista [sic] Phone 7. Shane O'Neill does the same thing:



Other boosters of Microsoft publish an analysis of Danger assets:

The now-dead KIN was not a bad idea (read our hands-on with the platform). Microsoft's ambitions with the KIN were sound. As much as the iPhone and, lately, Android handsets garner all the press attention, smartphones represent only a minority of phone sales—a growing minority, but a minority all the same. There are many, many people who don't have a smartphone, and don't even particularly want one, and they easily outnumber smartphone users.


Adrian, despite his pro-Microsoft bias, is being rude about it and he also takes shots at the hypePhone:

“What if Microsoft bought out a product where you had to spend $30 on an accessory to make it work right and stop is from breaking?”

That’s a question I received from a reader earlier today.

My reply: “I think people would go stark raving ballistic on Microsoft - and rightly so.”


"Let the Kin comedy begin," says TechFlash and The Inquirer is being very funny about it. Microsoft sympathisers may treat it as just a lesson/experiment, as if it wasn't all just work in vain. As usual, Microsoft partners get burned [1, 2].

Finnish electronics company Elcoteq (ELQAV.HE) said it expected its operating profit to turn positive in the second half despite Microsoft's decision to scrap the sale of "Kin" smartphones in Europe.

Shares in Elcoteq fell sharply on Thursday and closed 14.6 percent down at 1.40 euros, compared with a 1.9 percent weaker Helsinki bourse general index .


One writer explains "Why Microsoft's Kin Phones Were Destined to Fail" and in Twitter someone of authority says "I've seen Microsoft abandon a lot of products (including some that were pretty good). I'm floored by this Kin killing."

Here is a new article titled "Microsoft Flops: A Look Back"; it comes from a financial news site:

The Kin is gone. Add it to a long list of less-than-stellar product launches from Microsoft (MSFT).

The tech giant’s two-month-old phone was discontinued this week, and the team responsible for developing it has been dispatched to work on Windows Phone 7, the company says. While the Kin was never expected to be a major contributor to Microsoft’s bottom line, the failure of the device in the market is more about “hurting their pride,” says Carolina Milanesi, vice president of research in mobile devices at Gartner. (A Microsoft spokesman says it will incorporate “ideas and technologies” from Kin into future Windows Phone releases.)


Another financial news site posts "Microsoft Needs Wake-Up Call: Outrage":

Courier, your tablet idea, died on the drawing board while Apple's(AAPL) iPad rocketed. Your mobile phones don't stack up to Apple's iPhone or Google's(GOOG) Androids. And now your stalled travel business just got rear-ended.


As we showed last night, hypePhone too is having growing pains. Android, which is based on Linux, is going to take advantage of that. MeeGo is also a very strong contender.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
 
This is How Microsoft's XBox and Entire Consoles (If Not Gaming) Ventures Will Ultimately Die
Ensure you can blame "Tariffs" (politics)? If not "hey hi", the fashionable go-to excuse when businesses fail?
What They Really Hate David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) for
Nothing to do with code
Smart People Won't Buy 'Smart' Cars
Imagine trying to sell someone a house (proper home) while insisting that it'll need to be demolished 5 or 10 years later, then rebuilt again from scratch on the same vacant lot
The Relationship Between IBM Red Hat and Microsoft, Visualised
This metaphor goes a long way (projects, collaborations, and outsourcing
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part III - Spying on Reporters' Families, Chaining Cases for Microsoft Employees Who Demand Censorship of Facts (Even Politely Expressed)
the time seems right to wrap up this introductory series
Links 24/09/2025: "NASA Moving Out of Entire Buildings as It's Gutted" and Purge of Online Critics (Opposing Fascism Becomes Unlawful)
Links for the day
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/09/2025: Gemlogs and Politics
Links for the day
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025