Microsoft Kin is Done Less Than 2 Months After Launching

Microsoft hasn’t had much luck with it’s social-centric semi-smartphone platform, Kin.  Now it looks like that misfortune has finally caught up with the software juggernaut.  Until now, Microsoft had planned to launch the Kin platform in Europe in the Fall of 2010, right around the time when Windows Phone 7 would likely be hitting. {Engadget}

Now Microsoft has announced that Kin will not be coming to Europe, and that it will be moving those who are still on the Kin team to the Windows Phone 7 team, which would hopefully brings some of Kin to the new smartphone platform.  Microsoft will still continue selling the Kin One and Two with Verizon, but it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing it on any other carriers any time soon, as in not ever.

According to report from Engadget, it looks like Kin may have been doomed from the start.  Microsoft had Danger, the guys who did the original software on the Sidekick, switch from building on top of Danger and switching to a Windows CE-based system.  That delay bothered Verizon, the partner for Kin, and possibly ruined any chance at getting the cheaper data plans the Kin so desperately needed in order to succeed.  With smartphone pricing and the typical expensive data plans, the Kin would ultimately fail before even getting a chance – even with Best Buy offering them up for free.  There’s a lot more corporate politics over at the Engadget story which makes for an interesting read.

The Kin seemed like a great idea, even without the apps.  Connecting to social networks easily along with the cute form factor of the Kin One seemed perfect for the teenage market.  The fact that most of it’s users wouldn’t be able to afford or convince their parents to pay up for a data plan was a major issue, when it got to that point, an iPhone or Droid would seem to make much more sense.

The Kin Studio was perhaps the greatest idea, and hopefully is something that finds it’s way into Windows Phone 7 when that launches, likely in October.  Being able to find and send/upload/download all the photos taken on your phone arranged in chronological order would be fantastic.  It might be too late in WP7’s development cycle to implement it, but it could always come as an update later on, or even a cheap pay-per-month service if it was really needed.