An increasingly irrelevant software company releases a 'me-too' phone three
years too late to be a contender. Pathetic. MS had no chance, none, in the
mobile race
today's Piper Jaffray poll of young adults proves it, MS has no mindshare with
young people.
0%, yes, zero percent of respondents in the poll said they would buy a Zune,
last fall 13% said they would, that means that MS has lost, not gained
mindshare. Or, it means our teens are getting smarter!
If MS can't talk a teen into getting an mp3 player, how the heck are they going
to compete against Apple's iPhone and Google's Android offerings?
MS is dead. Long live MS!
I’ve seen a few reports this morning around the Web, citing a Verizon database entry, as evidence that Microsoft is going to be christening its Pink phones as “Kin.”
When I just checked “www.kin.com,” the domain resolved to Bing.com, making me think there’s something to this naming “rumor.” I’d say Microsoft’s Pink team is going to be all in with Kin….
Update: Yep. It’s official. Pink is now known as “Kin.” There’s a Kin One and a Kin Two. And www.kin.com now resolves to the Microsoft Kin phone site.
Microsoft’s first Pink phones are set to be unveiled officially today (April 12). The phones have been a badly kept secret for some time. The final name, however, has been a secret right up until today.
The Pink phones are expected to be manufactured by Sharp, but to carry the Microsoft logo. So much for Microsoft execs’ repeated claims there wouldn’t be a Microsoft phone. (To be precise, Microsoft’s brass have denied there would be a Microsoft-made phone, but never would answer directly whether there would be a Microsoft-branded phone.) Verizon and Vodafone are expected to be the first Pink carriers and the Pink phones — unlike their Windows Phone 7 counterparts — are widely expected to ship before this month is out. (Windows Phone 7 devices, from a handful of Microsoft partners, are slated to debut in time for holiday 2010.)
I’ll be reporting later today about the Pink/Kin launch. If you want to watch the launch Webcast from the comfort of your own desk/phone, it will be Webcast starting at 1 p.m. ET.
What do you think of Kin as a name for the Sidekick successors, aimed primarily at the social-networking set of teens/20-somethings? I wasn’t a fan of the “Bing” name when Microsoft first unveiled it (I preferred “Kumo”), but it has grown on me. Kin — I’m on the fence….
