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Topic: Microsoft

Prices slashed on Microsoft's Kin One and Kin Two

Summary: While Apple's latest smartphone is breaking records, Microsoft's Kin One and Kin Two handhelds aren't doing so hot. What could help boost sales? A price drop!

Rachel King

By for The ToyBox |

While Apple's latest smartphone is breaking records, Microsoft's Kin One and Kin Two handhelds aren't doing so hot. What could help boost sales? A price drop!

According to our sister site CNET, sales just haven't been where they should be by now for these two mobile devices. So without any official announcement, Verizon just cut prices to $29 and $49 for the Kin One and Kin Two respectively. Naturally, those low, low prices will still require the signing of a two-year service contract.

But price drops aren't always the answer to saving a product, especially when there are still a whole bunch of other costs tacked on to these phones as ZDNet's Zack Whittaker pointed out. The Kin series is a unique one because it is targeted specifically toward a youth demographic. It's a niche product, but is it...too niche? Instead of lowering prices, improved features might do the trick, or just trying to attract an additional demographic in general.

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Topic: Microsoft

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12 comments
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  • The Kin is now dead

    It's now obvious that the Kin is a monumental failure.

    What was Microsoft thinking to release such a crippled phone onto the market?

    It was supposed to be a social messaging phone. But messages on Kin have a 15 minute delay before they are updated... a bizarre and crippling shortcoming.

    Kin could not instant message. It could not Tweet properly. It could not upload photos to Twitter.

    Worst of all, Kin had no apps. Not even Java ME apps. Nothing. Hapless and appless.

    Microsoft will now have to try to sweep Kin's remains under the carpet, hoping that nobody notices that Kin is dead, so that it does not cause too much of a stain on Microsoft's next hobbled phone, Windows Phone 7.
    Vbitrate
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Prices slashed on Microsoft's Kin One and Kin Two

    There is nothing wrong with KIN. It's absolutly ok that KIN is restricted like thousands of other normal phones in the same price area (full fledged smartphones are just a small piece of the complete mobile phone market). The costs for the device are absolutly ok, but killed by the data plan. On the other side you need the data plan, because KIN is a cloud based OS (and maybe this wasa mistake). I am very curious about conditions when KIN hits the european market.
    Mr.Gonzo
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Prices slashed on Microsoft's Kin One and Kin Two

    Did you really just compare the Kin to the iPhone? No comparison. Anyway, as predicted these are not selling because of the required data plan. $30 plan for a feature phone just isn't all that appealing. Plus the Verizon reps are telling people to just get a smart phone because the price is the same and it would do more. Verizon killed the Kin.
    Loverock Davidson
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Prices slashed on Microsoft's Kin One and Kin Two

    The main problem with the Kin is that it was aimed at kids but you still needed a data plan. Since the features are limited Verizon could have reduced the price of the data plan needed to power the phone but they didn't.. so owning a Kin costs as much as owning a Droid.
    Hoodgrown_Magazine
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Prices slashed on Microsoft's Kin One and Kin Two

      @Hoodgrown_Magazine Pretty much. I had such high hopes for it then I saw a full priced data plan and knew it was dead out the door. If the data plan was cheaper parents would have ate these phones up for their kids who wanted a Droid or iPhone.
      StupidTechZealots-23432415690276115908309621553360
      Reply Vote

  • MS needs a Steve Jobs

    Nobody at MS had the guts to say "no." Steve Ballmer didn't, and that's just one example of why he needs to go. Microsoft's mobile strategy is so incoherent it's an embarrassment to even its remaining fans.
    rynning
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Prices slashed on Microsoft's Kin One and Kin Two

    well, maybe in 20 years, assuming it is properly preserved by removing the batteries and other degradable items for mothballing, it will be a collectors item like my old Sony SMC-210 laptop or Microvax 3300.

    Well, maybe that is stretching it. Maybe more along the lines of the 3-channel radio shack walkie-talkie.
    Seriously.. www.bunkerofdoom.com/CBHT/index.html
    -but the walkie talkie still works and I don't have to pay anyone if I want to use it.

    Good try from MS. C+ for something that actually looked cool. Next time, you got to think this stuff through better. Especially meeting user expense-vs-function expectations and not limiting appliance performance to achieve your own goals on the cheap.
    opcom
    Reply Vote

  • Good grief!

    If, in fact, Verizon killed the Kin, then somebody (Ballmer, listen up!) allowed them to do it. It is hard to imagine a company with the size and heft of Microsoft (1) not thinking through the impact of the data plan price on sales, or (2) not able to convince Verizon to create a lower priced data plan, appropriate to the target market. This is an embarrassment and Verizon doesn't come off looking too sharp, either.
    frabjous
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Prices slashed on Microsoft's Kin One and Kin Two

      @frabjous
      Are you serious? You find it hard to imagine Microsoft not thinking? The Kin was killed so that Verizon would push Windows 7 phones when they finally come out. The Kin was just a placeholder for all the Sidekick owners that they screwed over by buying the technology.

      Typical Microsoft, buy a competing product, screw it up so bad that you will go running to their product.

      Verizon doesn't care. They have more Android phones than they can give away. Plus more on the way. That's how they are manipulating the marketshare numbers.
      hammeroftruth
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Prices slashed on Microsoft's Kin One and Kin Two

    Just because only 500 were sold during the time period that 1.7 million iPhones were sold everyone is upset? Ballmer will have the Kins coated in dark chocolate and they will fly off the shelves!
    john_gillespie@...
    Reply Vote

    • That's not fair

      @john_gillespie@...
      1.7 million iPhone 4's sold in a weekend. iPhone 3 models were selling at the same time too. The kin sold their 500 in a month according to the rumor.

      I'm thinking there's going to be a lot of Kins donated to charity in the near future.
      symbolset
      Reply Vote

  • Drop data plan to $5/mo.

    Then I'll consider getting the kids one.
    deepee912
    Reply Vote
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