New Microsoft phone sells 500 units, gets axed.

I hadn't even heard of the kin but I'm hardly the target market for it (was there a target market??) but MS's rival for the iPhone seems to have been an even bigger failure than the Zune. I'd imagine this more because hipsters think apple is wicked cool and "with it" whereas MS is old and just not cool. But still, always funny to see MS and Ballmer fail, just bear in mind one evil company has replaced another.

EDIT
We're lucky enough to have had a veritable expert (well Tony knows more than I do about this stuff anyway) on smartphones clarify exactly what went wrong:

Actually the story behind this is a lot more complicated than this blog post would have you believe. This is the product line stemming from the MS takeover of Danger which created the Sidekick. The idea was for a device that bridged feature phones and smartphones and the concept was a solid one. There are a host of reasons the Kin failed, but the simplest explanation is that Android killed it.

First off, when the product was conceived smartphones were beyond the reach of a lot of people, particularly in the target demographic which were social networking teens and twentysomethings. Unfortunately, corporate infighting pushed the launch of the Kin back about 18 months which anyone who follows Android and the rate at which "Jesusphones" have been launching will tell you is an eternity.

Secondly, it launched on Verizon who required a full smartphone plan with the phone. You can imagine the size of the market for a phone that doesn't do half of what a smartphone does, has no third party app store, and costs the same as a smartphone both upfront and for the plan.

Third, it's just not a good product. Read the Engadget review here, it's hilarious: http://www.engadget.­com/2010/05/05/kin-one-and-two-review/

Last, is Android. With the pricing structure for OS licensing on smartphones reduced to rubble by Android OS being open source, there is simply no reason for low powered smartphones to not dominate over this concept. It's reduced the cost of manufacturing smartphones significantly making them within reach of anyone and destroying any value a bridge device would have had (18 months prior) plus they're full-featured, updateable, and have a thriving app store.

It also bears mentioning that Microsoft knew this but due to arrangements with its hardware partner (Sharp) and its provider partner (Verizon) was contractually obligated to bring the Kin to market.

Does any of this mean Windows Phone 7 won't be a colossal failure? Of course not. It's as stillborn as the Kin and it's still six months from launching. That's another story altogether and one that Ballmer himself will be authoring. It's unfair to saddle him with the failure of the Kin though beyond blaming him for the corporate culture that led to its creation.

So thanks Tony, we can now laugh at MS's failure in a far more knowing fashion