June 30th, Microsoft announced that the their latest release, KIN, had a main stream market coronary. Only 2 months ago the youngling was released to the market; to the wild. The young device just wasn’t able to survive.
I found a bit of entertainment; I was seeing commercials for Microsoft KIN on TV and radio spots- knowing that Microsoft had decided to pull the KIN from the market only 2 months after releasing it to the wild.
At this point, it’s common knowledge that Microsoft is failing/falling in the smartphone market. It’s almost a given that if the new Windows 7 mobile operating system doesn’t have a killer application/use when it releases- it’s not going anywhere.
When the KIN was released on the market, I knew it was an destined loser because the features it was offering could be easily implemented in to an iPhone or Android very easily with a simple application.
The whole basis for the KIN was to share and connect with your social links/people. iPhone and Android already do this on some level [with applications], and to devote a whole device to doing that one thing- it was stupid. I would hate to be the guy who decided this was the best thing to do right now.
The market research on deciding to release that phone must’ve been 1-2 years old. That’s the only way this thing got released.
But now the IPhone and Android are dominating the market. Android is actually stomping everyone… Being installed on everything but a toaster…
The release of the iPhone 4 has just happened, and it had a strong release- plenty of people upgraded to the iPhone 4, but not many NEW customers. It was reported that around 70+% of the people who got an iPhone 4 were people upgrading… reading the underlying message- that says a lot. More people are picking up Android based phones… With every carrier.
Facing this kind of data, Microsoft seems to be driven to make a big splash on the smartphone market. Microsoft says they want to compete, but will they have enough to convince people to stay with their operating system? –not without a killer application.
Microsoft has plenty of problems to draw from over the past few years and this just seems to be a reoccurring pattern of too little, too late- again. Most of their efforts are to just attempt to stay in pace with Google- which again, they’re losing.
While it’s a set back for Microsoft- I knew this was coming; it’s just nice to know I was right.
Excuse me while I take pause and gloat.
Until next time,
LEHenryJr
LEHSYS.com
