Microsoft Ends Kin Product Line

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Sad news for fans of Microsoft’s Kin phones today. Sources close to Microsoft told Gizmodo that the quasi-smartphones would be shelved. Not only are plans for any Kin Three not coming, but the Kin One and Two won’t be making their scheduled release in Europe.

While neither Microsoft or Verizon confirmed this – all indications pointed towards the phones selling poorly. Just a few months after release, Best Buy dropped the price of their Kins and a few days ago, Verizon offered their own price drop. One website even reported that only 500 Kins were sold – probably too small a number.

Microsoft expert Paul Thurrott said on the Windows Weekly podcast that the Kin was never meant to be a serious product line for Microsoft and that it was just to bridge the gap between Windows Mobile 6 and Windows Phone 7. The Kin phones were running a custom version of Windows Embedded CE, skinned to look like Windows Phone  7.

Here’s the official comment from Microsoft:

We have made the decision to focus exclusively on Windows Phone 7 and we will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned. Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases. We will continue to work with Verizon in the US to sell current KIN phones.

When Gizmodo went to Verizon for comment, they only replied that the Kin remained an important part of their phone lineup.

Just about every pundit on the web, including us at this site, opined that the curse of the Kin was that Verizon was requiring a full smartphone data plan. The Kin appealed to 15 to 25 year olds who can’t may not be able to afford such a plan. While the snarky iPhone-using Apple crowd was pretty rough on the Kin One and Kin Two, those who actually got hands-on time with the phones seemed to like them or think they were at least okay.