14 DAY TRIAL // Officially, Microsoft's KIN phones are dead. The Redmond-based software giant announced at the end of June that it shut down the KIN development team through integrating it into the Windows Phone 7 unit, and now Verizon Wireless halted the sales of the two devices that formed the KIN family, namely the KIN One and KIN Two.
The result of the long rumored Project Pink, KIN One and KIN Two arrived on the market as an alternative to those handsets which include social networking features. According to Microsoft, the KIN devices were true social phones, with enhanced connectivity options to various online destinations, including Facebook or the like.
Microsoft’s KIN One and KIN Two handsets arrived on shelves in the United States via Verizon Wireless, which had them exclusively, and were set to make an appearance to the European market too, via Vodafone. Although only rumored yesterday, Verizon's move on the matter is now officially confirmed, as Big Red announced that KIN One and KIN Two are no longer available for purchase from it.
The sales of KIN devices have been very disappointing, with less than 10,000 units being shipped to users during their three months availability period. The low hardware specifications of the two handsets might have contributed to their slow performance, combined with the fact that the KIN family hasn't been promoted as it should have been.
KIN's short life is considered in a way a sign of Microsoft’s failure to deliver competitive products for the mobile phone market. The project was released into the wild as the predecessor of the company's forthcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system, which is said to be already doomed, even if it won't arrive on the market until a few months from now. One way or the other, with KIN dead and with Windows Phone 7 almost one year late to the party, Microsoft would certainly have some difficult battles to fight to prove that it is not out of the mobile game.