Source: Microsoft
So it would appear that Microsoft’s much touted entry into the featurephone space, the KIN, is being killed off this month. It would seem that while details around why the platform is being killed off are scant right now (even if there are a few well-informed theories floating about the place), the simple fact is that from a personal perspective, while the tech blogosphere did not seem to “get” the device, I do think that the death of the KIN project is a sad thing.
Let me explain why.
I am a high-school teacher. That means I work with teenagers 5 days a week. I see them interact with technology, in particular, mobile phones. The mobile phone has now become an essential part of any person’s “carry around” items, much like a wallet or a watch. The fact is, it is no longer a luxury item, and this is particularly so with teenagers. Even if it’s just so the parents can keep in constant touch with their child, the mobile phone has become the central pivot around which a teenager’s digital experience now revolves.
This is why I know that Microsoft’s market research on the KIN target demographic was completely on the mark. What the KIN attempted to excel at, while not reaching the levels of the iPhone or an Android smartphone device, was perfectly suited to the 13 – 19 market it was aiming for.
So what is it that teenagers in the 21st Century seem to do with their phones? Well, first and foremost they text message. A lot. They also, strangely, make voice calls on them. Mostly, from what I can tell, to their parents, the “oldies” who don’t get this funky new-age stuff we call the “Simple Messaging Service”.
So that means any dumbphone would be perfect fodder for them, yes? Well, not quite. The problem is, most dumbphones (your typical cheapie phone sold over the counter at Woolworths and Coles) don’t have great data connections, nor the software to back them up. Teenagers today are heavily invested into Facebook, and MySpace, and even to an extent now Twitter. They like to keep up-to-date with what their friends are doing, and these services provide such a means.
Teenagers today also take a lot of photos, and record hours of videos. There’s a great reason why Microsoft coined the phrase “Generation Upload” when referring to the modern teenager. This generation will be the most heavily documented generation we’ve ever produced, because of the billions of photos, and literally unlimited hours of video footage recorded by them, during their day-to-day lives.
Almost all of this video footage and photographic material ends up on Facebook, or YouTube, or wherever they can host it for free, so that it can be enjoyed by their friends.
This is what KIN allowed teenagers to do. This was the feature-set it focussed on. Give the kids a decent piece of hardware, with a good camera on the back, and allow them to connect the device into the social networks that they themselves frequent. Put their friend’s updates front and centre on the device, and presto – you have the perfect formula for a great device.
Teenagers also listen to a lot of music, and don’t seem to have the means or desire to pay for individual songs or whole albums. So the decision by Microsoft to tie KIN into their Zune music subscription service also made a huge amount of sense.
The single most impressive part of the whole experience was the KIN Studio, the cloud-based software platform that ensured the entire contents of the device were constantly backed up, using an attractive Silverlight-powered front end that I seriously hope becomes a part of Windows Phone 7 later this year. This addressed another big issue with teenagers owning mobile phones – they lose them frequently, or break them quite easily. So having their recorded experiences backed up makes a lot of sense.
In essence, the KIN had all the makings of the perfect teenager-centric phone. It featured all of the elements that they seem to use their phones for. Am sure that future software updates would have added more functionality to it, including some decent games, which I think would have also further helped the platform.
Except now that does not look like it is going to happen. Which is a shame. I used to see a lot of Sidekicks around the place, but not so much now (mostly because the old Danger product lined died off to make way for KIN). They were at their most common when Telstra was offering them for free on a 24-month $30 per month contract, which offered unlimited texting and data services. That was a winning combination, in all honesty. And it did result in Telstra selling a lot of Sidekicks.
So why do I think KIN failed? Well, leaving aside the politics for a moment, I think the problem here was quite simple – the KIN was a featurephone being priced as a smartphone. That’s what results in teenagers not owning iPhones or Android phones. The devices and associated data plans are too expensive. The KIN was just priced out of its own target demographic. Put up against an iPhone, it was never going to win over many people. Why get a KIN when for the same price you could get an iPhone? It’s a no brainer. But if the KIN had of been priced accordingly, it would have found itself a great niche to live in.
The KIN could have been a great success for Microsoft, and one it sorely needs right now in the phone space. It was just a shame that it wasn’t given more time to find its place in the market, or indeed be priced at a reasonable amount by it’s US launch partner, Verizon.
Guess we’ll just have to wait now for the formal Windows Phone 7 launch in October…