Microsoft Kin Death Raises Windows Phone 7 Questions
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=Windows Phone 7: Hail Mary Pass?}
Widely expected to launch on a variety of carriers before
the end of 2010, Windows Phone 7 features a user interface markedly different
from the rival Apple iPhone and Google Android platforms, which emphasize pages
of standalone applications. In place of that model, Windows Phone 7 condenses
Web content and applications into a set of subject-specific "Hubs," such as
"Games" or "Office."
Microsoft has been feverishly pushing at both
business-application and games developers to create content for the new
platform. One developer reportedly told the Website Pocketgamer.biz in June that Microsoft
had approached his colleagues about making their iPhone games compatible with Windows
Phone 7, with the company allegedly willing to offer "substantial" amounts of
money to make that happen. In addition, Microsoft pushed the platform as
business-friendly at its recent TechEd conference.
"More than 90 [percent] of our target customers for Windows
Phone use their smartphone for business purposes," Paul Bryan, a senior
director of Windows Phone at Microsoft, wrote June 7 on the Windows Phone Blog,
timed to the first day of TechEd, "and 61 percent use their phones equally or
more for business than personal use. This is why we designed Windows Phone 7 to
combine a smart new user interface with familiar tools such as PowerPoint,
OneNote, Excel and SharePoint into a single integrated experience via the
Office hub."
With Kin dead, Microsoft's attention now focuses solely on
Windows Phone 7. As Enderle mentioned in his note to eWEEK, the Kin's sudden
demise possibly re-emphasizes Microsoft's renewed do-or-die focus on the mobile
space. "This could be an early indicator of a major change at Microsoft, or it
could be just an exception," he wrote. "We'll hope it is an early indicator."
Or as Jack Gold wrote in a July 1 e-mail to eWEEK: "Microsoft was
splitting its resources between two mobile platforms, a hard thing to
do for any company." Although those disparate groups may now have been
linked in common cause, "Windows Phone 7 has to be a big success if
they want to stay in the mobile game. It's not clear it will be, but it
is probably slipping out even further, hence the pulling in of all
resources available."
