Microsoft Kin Problem and Solution - SYSM 6309 - Summer 2013

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Microsoft Kin Problem and

Solution
SYSM 6309 - Summer 2013
INDIVIDUAL PROJECT PAPER
SUBMISSION DATE:

Prepared by: Arun Perumb Krishnan

UTD Id: 20211 54585
Professor: Dr.Lawrance Chung

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Table of Contents

Background and Overview................................................................................... 3

1.1

MicroSoft Kin Background and Overview...................................................................3

MicroSoft Kin........................................................................................................ 3
2.1

MicroSoft Kin Development.......................................................................................3

2.2

MicroSoft Kin Project Investment............................................................................4

2.3

MicroSoft Kin Launch............................................................................................... 4

MicroSoft Kin Problem and Failure......................................................................4

3.1

MicroSoft Kin Problem............................................................................................. 4

3.2

MicroSoft Kin Failure................................................................................................ 5

MicroSoft Kin Problem Analysis..........................................................................5

4.1

MicroSoft Kin Market Scenario during the Kin development and launch time frame
5

4.2

MicroSoft Kin Focus Test Group Opinion..................................................................6

4.3

MicroSoft Kin Customer Opinions............................................................................6

MicroSoft Kin Soultion Recommendations..........................................................7

5.1

Soultion Recommendations Avoid Development delays..........................................7

5.2

Soultion Recommendations Avoid Project Competency...........................................7

5.3

Soultion Recommendations Importance to Non-Functional Requirements..............8

5.4

Soultion Recommendations Better Pricing Strategy................................................8

References........................................................................................................... 8

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1 Background and Overview

1.1 Microsoft Kin Background and Overview
Kin was a mobile handset developed by Microsoft during 2010. The Kin project idea
came when Microsoft acquired a Palo Alto, California based software company called
Danger Inc during February 2008. Danger Inc was specialized in hardware design,
software and services for mobile devices. One of the Danger mobile handset
products Sidekick was the first cloud-based Smartphone with the App marketplace.
Microsoft acquired Danger Inc for a price around $500 million.
Kin was a failure product from Microsoft. This project describes the problems
Microsoft Kin faced in the market and some of the solutions which could have
prevented the failure of the Microsoft Kin.

2 Microsoft Kin
2.1 Microsoft Kin Development
Kin project was first known as Project Pink. The main intention of Kin project was to
develop a mobile handset from Microsoft which has some built-in applications to
access the social networking media like Twitter, Facebook and Myspace to target at
teens and social networking addicts.

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Picture 1: Microsoft Kin

2.2 Microsoft Kin Project Investment

Kins development was inside Microsofts Premium Mobile Experiences (PMX)
division based on WinCE. The development of Kin platform took around 2 years and
the total project investment was US $1 billion. The additional investment for the
project is the acquisition of Danger Inc by Microsoft in February 2008 for $500
million.

2.3 Microsoft Kin Launch

Microsoft announced about their product Kin on April 10 th, 2010. They launched two
Kin models Kin ONE and Kin TWO and made available on Verizon Wireless stores on
May 13th, 2010.

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Picture 2: Kin ONE and Kin TWO

3 Microsoft Kin Problem and Failure

3.1 Microsoft Kin Problem
Some of the missing features in the Microsoft Kin were the following:

No Instant messaging

No Visual Voicemail

No photo editing options

No Calendar or appointment application

The additional missing functionalities of the Microsoft Kin were:

No additional Apps can be downloaded like any other smart phone

No extra options or downloads possible

Once shot, pictures cannot be edited only shared or stored

Videos recorded with camcorder have no sound, can only be deleted not
edited once captured

3.2 Microsoft Kin Failure

The Microsoft Kin became a failure within two months of its actual launch date.
Verizon stopped selling the Kin phones due to poor sales. Verizon returned all the
unsold phones to Microsoft. Microsoft scrapped the Kins Europe release due to the

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poor sales in US market. They also stopped promoting the Kin devices and ceased
production. Microsoft also transferred the Kin development team to join its Windows
Phone developers.

4 Microsoft Kin Problem Analysis

4.1 Microsoft Kin Market Scenario during the Kin
development and launch time frame

Below details some of the Market conditions during the time frame 2007 till the
2010 which interests the smart phone industry market:

January 9th 2007 Steve Jobs announced iPhone (First Generation)

June 29th 2007 The first iPhone released

Apple released iPhone 1st Gen, 3G and 3GS before the Kin launch

MS released Kin on:- May 13th 2010

Apple released iPhone 4 on June 2010

Also beginning of 2010 Google released Nexus One phones from HTC

Kin phones were overshadowed by the iPhone and Android Phones during the time
of launch in 2010.

4.2 Microsoft Kin Focus Test Group Opinion

Below are some of the observations and comments from the Focus test groups
regarding Microsoft Kin before the Kin release: Focus testers struggled with phones interface
Issues were present on basic functionality like making calls
Some of the opinions from the focus testers before Kin release:

The phone seems to be really slow in responding and that makes

it confused as to what it was doing

the phone was so unresponsive, it had a hard time registering a

simple phone number.

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lots of room to improve I think especially since I dont have a touch

phone right now, even so I think coming to a touch phone like this is
kind of a turnoff.. I think the biggest frustration I have is whether its
the lag, or whether its my actual touch [causing problems]

The focus test groups were not satisfied about the Microsoft product features and
the product was having issues during the focus test.

4.3 Microsoft Kin Customer Opinions

Below are some of the opinions from the Kin customers after their purchase of the
handset from Verizon Wireless in US market: I wouldn't say satisfied. I have a Kin TwoM, and it's a piece of crap. Not quite
as laggy as the focus test videos show, but still noticeably bad. The camera,
however, is just as bad as they say.
The HD video feature is unusable because it locks up constantly for a couple
seconds at a time while recording.
I'd love to upgrade to a WP handset (my Verizon upgrade period), but
unfortunately, I can't pay for the data plan.
The above comments clearly indicate that the customers were unhappy about the
Kin features which were faulty and the pricing were too above for a handset which
does not provide much internet features.

5 Microsoft Kin Solution Recommendations

Some of the solution recommendations which could have avoided the Microsoft Kin
failure are detailed in the below subsections.

5.1 Solution Recommendations Avoid Development delays

Two years is considered a significant development delay. Fasten the release date to
beat the market leaders in smart phone.

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Below table shows the Apple iPhone versions and its release dates. The table shows
that Apple took just approximately one year for each of their subsequent releases to
launch new features to make the customer happy and attracted towards their smart
phone device.
Apple iPhone versions

Release dates

iPhone 1st generation

June 29th, 2007

iPhone 3G

July 11th, 2008

iPhone 3GS

June 19th, 2009

iPhone 4

June 24th, 2010

5.2 Solution Recommendations Avoid Project Competency

Kins development was inside Microsofts Premium Mobile Experiences (PMX) which
was a parallel project to Windows Mobile Platform. Rather than two different
platforms have one mobile platform for a better quality product and to avoid:

Wastage of time

Wastage of resources

Wastage of money

Conflicts between colleagues/Management

5.3 Solution Recommendations Importance to Non-Functional

Requirements
Give importance to Non-functional requirements in relation to some of the functional
requirements

Camera

HD Video recorder

Making calls

Also capture the functional and non-functional requirements to beat the existing
smart phones and use Change Requests to constantly update them through the
development cycle.

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5.4 Solution Recommendations Better Pricing Strategy

Since the Kin uses the data network only for accessing limited social networking
sites the data usage would have been limited compared to the existing smart
phones. The price of the data plan should have been minimized compared to the
other smart phone data plans to attract more teenagers and social networking
addicts

6 References
1) www.Wikipedia.org
2) http://www.mobiledia.com/phones/microsoft/kin-two.html
3) http://gizmodo.com/
4) http://images.google.com/
5) http://rdmanagement.blogspot.com/2010/07/r-portfolio-management-casestudy.html
6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone
7) http://bcgconsulting.blogspot.com/2011/01/failure-product-marketinganalysis.html
8) http://www.utdallas.edu/~chung/SYSM6309/syllabus.htm