Windows Phone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

Be sure to register in our forums! Share your opinions, help others, and enter our contests.


Digital Home Thoughts

Loading feed...

Laptop Thoughts

Loading feed...

Android Thoughts

Loading feed...





All posts tagged "sharp"


Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Sharp is a Victim of KIN's Death As Well

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Windows Phone Talk" @ 12:00 AM

http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2010/0...860551279831020

"One of the biggest loosers in the Kin debacle that hasn't been talked about is Sharp. OEM for the Kin, and the biggest cellphone brand in Japan....but not in the states of course. Kin was supposed to be their entry point into the US market for mobile. Sharp ponied up half the ad $ for the Kin launch...basically subsidised it with the thought it would be good for their brand and they would sell a lot of phones and be a trojan horse for other Sharp Mobile efforts in the US. Big fail. Not only did they have to tool up factories custom design hardware and sub the marketing they only sold a few thousand phones at best. Sharp's taking a huge bath on this one. And because Sharp's mobile group is in Nara Japan and had no people on the ground in WA or Palo Alto...they had little leverage or insight into the US market and got taken for a ride. I'm sure there are a lot of unhappy execs in Osaka right now cause of this..."

I've spent more than a few minutes reading 100+ comments on this Mini Microsoft post that we already linked to, and boy, it's quite the read. If you if you throw out half of what's there, the rest that's left is staggering. The comment I quoted above was quite interesting in that no one has mentioned Sharp in all this mess - and as you can tell from the comment, Sharp has indeed lost big. They bet on Microsoft, and Microsoft burned them - badly. Is that really something Microsoft can afford to do that given their weak position in the mobile market?

Tags: microsoft, sharp, kin

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Microsoft's Kin: Dead On Arrival (in North America at Least)

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Windows Phone Talk" @ 12:00 PM

http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/...ticle.php?a=365

"Quite frankly, I haven't been this disappointed in a phone in a long time. The list of complaints and missteps far outweighs the positives this time around. The basic concept of a phone focused on social networking is not new, and has been done better by others (Motorola, Palm, HTC). The Kin Loop and Kin Spot are neat concepts, no doubt, but the execution falls far, far short of what others have been able to accomplish." - Eric M. Zeman, phonescoop

"The execution (or lack thereof) on these products makes us legitimately concerned about what the company will do with Windows Phone 7. We can only hope that the similarities between those devices and the Kin handsets don't stretch much further than the "Windows Phone" label, because in our estimation, Kin is one side of the family that needs to be disowned... quickly." - Joshua Topolsky, Engadget

I had the opportunity to hear from the Kin team (back then they were the Pink team) back in November at the Mobius 2009 event - in fact, that's one of the reasons I titled my post "Fascinating, But Little That Can Be Shared". We spent several hours with the Kin team, really diving into what they were doing, but couldn't say anything about it. I knew that the Kin wasn't for me - it lacked too many features I'd want, but I knew exactly who the Kin was for: someone like my younger sister. She's 25 years old (I'm 35), uses a Motorola KRZR and a paper dayplanner, works for a non-profit agency, and is cost-conscious. She's careful about what she spends money on and is heavily into Facebook and texting (like most people her age). A phone like the Kin - a phone focused on social networking and sharing with friends, is exactly the kind of thing she'd love.

"Real" smartphones - of any brand - are still too costly for many people. Data plans in North America are still quite expensive - I was overjoyed when my GSM carrier (Rogers) gave me the opportunity to grab a 6 GB data plan for $30/month - so I knew that the key to the Kin being adopted by the target market its aimed at would be the pricing. Microsoft went for an exclusive carrier partnership - we knew that at Mobius - so I thought "OK, they've obviously gone exclusive to ensure a killer voice + data plan". The reality? The pricing plan from Verizon has killed the Kin. Read more...


Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...

Reviews & Articles

Loading feed...

News

Loading feed...