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1. RoosterJuice

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Mar 2010

   +10
   06/18, 11:22am | report spam | close reply

   wow

   SO MUCH FAIL

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1. jarod

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Apr 2005

   +11
   06/18, 11:27am | report spam | close reply

   LOL

   You gotta give em credit for entertaining the world with their flops though :D
   
   EPIC FAIL should be tattooed on that monkey CEO's forehead.
   
   BALLMER for head baboon!

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1. WiseWeasel

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Apr 1999

   +12
   06/18, 11:27am | report spam | close reply

   Ouch

   A flying chair alert is now in effect for the Seattle metropolitan area. We are now on monkeyboy alert level red. Wear protective equipment when entering any executive conference rooms.
   
   I knew this thing would flop, but man, that is a spectacular flop. It's a good thing Microsoft dumped all that money into buying Danger...

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1. Wingsy

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Apr 2005

   +8
   06/18, 11:36am | report spam | close reply

   MS Shareholder

   If I was a Microsoft shareholder, man would I be pissed that this is all my company can do. But I loaded up on Apple stock a few years ago (before the iPhone) and I'm smiling all the way to the bank and back.

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1. Paul Huang

   Dedicated MacNNer

   Joined: Sep 1999

   +5
   06/18, 11:48am | report spam | close reply

   NONE sold

   Each one was sold as a demo unit.

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1. thebiggfrogg

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jul 2007

   +5
   06/18, 11:57am | report spam | close reply

   Microsoft took...

   'Think Different' a bit too literally.
   
   I guess if you own a Kin you are 'unique.'

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1. Cbrguy

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jul 2009

   +2
   06/18, 12:30pm | report spam | close reply

   Former Win Mobile Fan

   I used to be a windows mobile fan from the days of the early Ipaq (PDA only) through the ATT Tilt with WM 6.1. I waited forever for an update and apps that made the phone more useful. I finally got tired of waitng and switched to the HTC hero with android. I couldn't be happier, especially seeing what MS has done with the new operating system, it is sooo far behind the iphone, android or even Palm! In the end I do still use my ATT Tile for one app, but with time I'm sure there will be a replacment for Android. That one app is specialized moving map software for Aviation use.

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1. techguy999

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jun 2010

   +3
   06/18, 12:49pm | report spam | close reply

   Yet another Windows Mobile OS....

   This rumor makes Steve Ballmer's rather hurried announcement of Windows Embedded Handheld, which is built on top of the Windows Embedded Compact (formerly known as Windows Embedded CE) core (to quote Mary Jo Foley).
   
   The Zune-based Windows Mobile 7 is probably not inspiring Enterprise customers, given the flop of the "Kin" phone. Thus, Microsoft's goes to their favorite playbook"
   
   Reboot
   Rehash
   Rebrand
   
   "Windows Embedded Handheld" is a Plan B in case the WM7 Zune-phone is another Kin-tastrpohe. If the Zune-phone zucks, Microsoft could find themselves completely out of the mobile space by late 2011.
   
   If I were Google and Apple I would be porting the apps Former Win Mobile Fan pointed out over as fast as possible.
   
   
   

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1. iphonerulez

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Nov 2008

   +4
   06/18, 01:21pm | report spam | close reply

   The Kin was a limited market device to begin with

   but I didn't think it would be that limited. Those Kins probably just don't do enough. Most of those features could be put on any smartphone as an app. I really don't quite understand much about that social threading stuff, but that's because I'm not very social. However, from some of the demos I've watched, it did seem to have some nice features for those that do.
   
   I think that Microsoft is just confusing their whole mobile consumer and corporate base if any is left. Especially if Windows Phone 7 early version has less features than Windows Mobile 6.5 had. Microsoft's mobile effort really seems to be in big trouble and if Ballmer says he isn't concerned, then I'd question his judgment.

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1. byRyan

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jun 2007

   +2
   06/18, 01:46pm | report spam | close reply

   ex-girlfriends

   I mean, I can understand why no one would want a phone to take pics of their ex-girlfriend, but you would think more people would be excited about seeing ?uestlove! (referring to their AWEFUL commercials)
   
   And is the low sales due to a dumb phone with smart phone pricing, or just a half baked, ill conceived interface that targeted towards early teens who don't have any income. Teens are not babies, you don't have to make a device that caters towards their perceived needs. Hey windows, how bout you make a phone for grown-ups!

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1. jpellino

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Oct 1999

   +1
   06/18, 01:54pm | report spam | close reply

   HA!

   Amazing how the "largest SW company in the world" (well, not actually...) can be this bad at innovation and execution. Amazing.

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1. shawnce

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Nov 2000

   +1
   06/18, 02:33pm | report spam | close reply

   not sure I believe the numbers...

   They would have to work hard to only sell 500 given the amount of advertising the have going.
   
   I don't think it will do well given the other devices in the market but only 500 units is a total failure if true.

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1. philomath777

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Mar 2004

   +4
   06/18, 03:29pm | report spam | close reply

   No kin do

   What does the "beleaguered" Microsoft do with all their money and engineers, besides expensive Office upgrades?
   
   It seems they're spread so wide and thin that they have lost focus as a company apart from their old cash cows.
   
   Maybe Google should buy Microsoft, or vice-versa...

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1. Darchmare

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Nov 2009

   +1
   06/18, 06:01pm | report spam | close reply

   ...

   I'm with byRyan on this one.
   
   Granted, I'm not part of the target market (teenagers), but the advertising I saw on Facebook and elsewhere was so ham-fisted and patronizing it's not even funny. Going by Microsoft's marketing message, the main thing these phones would be used for is helping teenage girls stalk teenage boys.
   
   From what I remember being a teenager, something like that would be seen as completely transparent. Apple has made a decent dent in the same market - despite high prices - by not going to such lengths to portray said market as a bunch of drooling hormone-controlled idiots.
   
   The pricing structure for a dumb-phone probably didn't help much, either.
   
   Win7 Mobile looks like it stands on much better ground, technically speaking. For Microsoft's sake, let's hope they don't s**** up the marketing so bad. Focusing on a single mobile product instead of their current "throw everything against the wall and see what sticks" approach might help, too.

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1. OkieDoc

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2001

   0
   06/18, 07:45pm | report spam | close reply

   Kin ISN'T Windows 7 Phone?

   I've been tortured for weeks with HULU commercials about the KIN (very bad commercials, poor production quality, IMHO). I thought the whole time that what they were using WAS "Windows 7 Phone".
   
   What the heck does the KIN run? Why would MS produce a new phone before rolling out their new OS?

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1. Fast iBook

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Mar 2003

   0
   06/18, 08:05pm | report spam | close reply

   Your shipment of fail.......

   Your shipment of fail has arrived, along with lack of shipments of your product... ;)
   
   - A

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1. Makosuke

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2001

   0
   07/07, 06:54pm | report spam | close reply

   That just can't be right...

   ...can it? I mean, based entirely on the carpet-bombing advertising I saw personally--and I watch very little media with ads--I'd have even been a little surprised at the 10,000 number. I mean, with that much advertising you could get more than 503 people to buy a gold plated piece of drywall if it had a Microsoft logo on it. h***, you could get 503 people to buy a gold plated piece of drywall WITHOUT a Microsoft logo on it, based on sheer peer pressure after watching Office reruns on Hulu bracketed by Kin ads.
   
   Then again, maybe all the people that stupid couldn't convince their parents to sign up for a 2-year, $70/month contract for the thing. And even assuming the 10K number is accurate, that'd still be shamefully low--probably less devices than the number of advertising slots they paid for.
   
   On the other hand, if it really were 503, that would sort of explain why Microsoft, king of throwing good money after bad and momentum, cancelled it so quickly. This is the company that spent tens of millions of dollars advertising the XBox in Japan only to eventually give up and start selling them with DoA Beach Volleyball body pillows.

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1. Makosuke

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2001

   0
   07/07, 06:58pm | report spam | close reply

   Re: Kin ISN'T Windows 7 Phone?

   "What the heck does the KIN run? Why would MS produce a new phone before rolling out their new OS?"
   
   If those weren't rhetorical questions, the answers are:
   
   It runs a complete re-write of the Sidekick OS they bought along with Danger a couple years ago. It was re-written, so rumor has it, so that it would be based on the Windows CE codebase, not Danger's software. Because... um, it cost more that way, I guess.
   
   And the answer to your second question is "That's a question executives at Microsoft should have been asking themselves well before the thing hit the market."