Kin was a short-lived mobile phone line from Microsoft designed for users of social networking. The phones, aimed at people between ages 15 and 30, were manufactured by Sharp Corporation and sold through Verizon Wireless.
Microsoft invested two years and about US$1 billion developing the Kin platform, beginning with its acquisition of Danger Incorporated. The Kin was based on Windows CE.
The Kin ONE and TWO went on the market on May 14, 2010. Within two months, Verizon stopped selling the phones because of poor sales. Microsoft scrapped its planned European release, stopped promoting the devices, ceased production, and reassigned the Kin development team to other projects.
Microsoft updated its unsold Kin inventory with firmware that removed social and web-based features, and in December 2010 offered these re-purposed units through Verizon stores as limited feature phones, the Kin ONEm and the TWOm. In January 2011, Microsoft shut down the kin.com website, which controlled most of the earlier phones' features.
The Kin TWOm was discontinued in August 2011; unsold inventory could still be found for sale on deals sites as late as June 2013.
History
Development
The Kin project was first known by the codename Project Pink, and began under direction of Microsoft executive J Allard. In order to gain a head start, Microsoft acquired Danger Incorporated, which built the Danger Hiptop/T-Mobile Sidekick, in 2008 for a purchase price rumored to be around US$500 million. In September 2009, a ZDNet source reported that Project Pink would bring an entirely new software stack and services. Some reports predicted that the new mobile phone platform would be based on the Zune media device. The project was managed by Roz Ho, a corporate vice president at Microsoft. Internally, the team used the slogan "Truly Madly Deeply Pink"; in tweets they used the hashtag "#tmdp".
Kin was developed inside Microsoft's Premium Mobile Experiences (PMX) division by a group that included staff from Danger. Handset manufacturers and network carriers were said to be initially enthusiastic about Kin, and vying with each other to be involved with the project.
According to Engadget, there was jealousy and rivalry in Microsoft's executive ranks, and Windows Phone senior vice president Andy Lees managed to wrest control of the Kin project away from Allard, and move it under his Windows Phone division. Danger's Sidekick, the predecessor to Kin, was based on the Java programming language, but Engadget says that Lees wanted Kin to run an in-house Microsoft operating system. Microsoft planned to base Kin on Windows Phone. Due to delays with Windows Phone, however, the software instead had to be based directly upon Windows CE.
Engadget claims that Lees lacked enthusiasm for the Kin project. Nonetheless, Microsoft spent a further two years developing the Kin until its release in 2010.
Unveiling
The unveiling of Microsoft Kin began when the company sent out invitations to select reporters for a mystery event in San Francisco on April 12, 2010. The tagline on the invitation said "It's time to share". However, just hours later a source confirmed that the event was about Project Pink (the official name not having been announced yet). The event was held in a night club called Mighty and featured a presentation given by Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Device division.
Microsoft was criticized for an online video advertisement for the phone that depicted a male teenager putting a Kin under his shirt to photograph his naked chest. He was then shown sending the image to a female teenager. The Consumer Reports group described the advertisement as a "downright creepy sequence," suggesting that it promoted sexting. In response, Microsoft deleted the "inappropriate" portion of the video.
Discontinuation
Kin had poor sales. Microsoft executives told The New York Times that they were dismayed that Verizon Wireless staff were not promoting the phones actively enough. After only 48 days on the market, Microsoft discontinued the Kin line on June 30, 2010 and by mid-July 2010 Verizon had returned all their unsold phones to Microsoft. Kin's planned European release on UK carrier Vodafone was canceled.
“The Kin was a mistake from Day One,” Rob Enderle, principal analyst of Enderle Group, told eWeek magazine. “The extra time they took to convert the Kin from the Sidekick platform to Windows CE made it about a year and a half late to market, and the merger likely added another year and a half. That’s 1.5 to 3 years late depending on when you start the clock.”