“Earlier this week, an anonymous tipster leaked the news that Microsoft’s top secret Pink project, aimed to take on the iPhone just as the Zune targeted the iPod, was ‘near death and probably will be canceled,'” Daniel Eran Dilger reports for AppleInsider.
“Another source has now spilled even more details about the internal crisis brewing within the company and how the failure of Pink relates to iPhone, Google’s Android, and Windows Mobile,” Dilger reports.
“The report is bad news for Microsoft given that less than two years ago it paid a reported $500 million to acquire Danger, the developer behind the T-Mobile Sidekick. Microsoft’s 2008 acquisition of the company was initially seen as an effort to breathe life into its struggling Windows Mobile division, which had been rapidly losing smartphone market share to RIM’s BlackBerry in the enterprise and Apple’s iPhone among consumers,” Dilger reports.
“It was later revealed that Microsoft had converted Danger into ‘Pink,’ a top secret project operating independently from Windows Mobile, with the intent of directly challenging the iPhone. This mimicked Microsoft’s earlier strategy of launching the Zune against Apple’s iPod, which the company did while assuring its PlaysForSure hardware and music store partners that Zune wouldn’t have any impact their existing business,” Dilger reports. “As it turned out, Zune had no impact on the iPod but completely destroyed the remains of Microsoft’s PlaysForSure partnerships.”
Dilger reports, “Our inside source now says the same thing is happening to Pink, even before Microsoft can finish it. That’s particularly problematic because Microsoft is already facing a schism between its Windows Mobile and Zune platform groups, their differing first party software development, and their business models for third party software and software stores.”
Read the extensive full article- highly recommended – here.
This doesn’t come as a suprise to me…
I’ll bet Pink wasn’t snappy enough.
When someone is so ignorant of computing history that they actually adopt a codename that was previously used for one of the biggest OS design failures ever, what do you expect?
Maybe pink slipping into the black will push microsoft into the red. Perhaps it was canceled because pink would blue screen too often?
On a more serious note, what is Mary Jo Foley over on ZDNet going to write about now? Seems that half of her columns had to do with the imminent release of Pink, and about how great it was going to be. Uh oh Mary Jo!
Interesting that Microsoft’s Pink project had the same code name as Apple’s failed early 90s project to replace the MacOS with a NeXT style operating system.
Microsoft: “We love our partners! We’re just software guys! . . . . Pssst … How’s that new smartphone coming?”
And Ballmer wonders why people don’t trust Microsoft?
Somehow, I just can’t imagine, Roz Ho listening to Pink.
This is what happens when you try to be all things to all people. May Ballmer stay CEO as long as it takes.
Just finished reading the article. You can’t help but feel sorry for Danger emplyees, but jeez, MS is in some DEEP excrement. Additionally, they are in far worse trouble as a company than even I thought. There seems to be a substantial amount of disarray at that company to the point that they have truly forgotten their core competence (if I can even call it that!)- software. I think that they confused it with something else and focused on it instead- power over the so-called tech industry.
How does that quote go? “… the LOVE of money (aka power) is the root of all evil…”
Is this what we are seeing at MS, to the point that they are willing to blatantly stab MAJOR partners in the back? And by MAJOR i mean truly world class companies (Sharp, t-mobile, etc.)
Oops- forgot to finish my post.
I was going to by saying “pathetically tragic”
got a pink slip
It’s going to be exceedingly enjoyable watching the meltdown at Microsoft over the next three years…
Let us all hope that project “Pink” somehow survives and results in a new hardware device, a shiny new mobile phone. Let us also hope that the new phone competes with WinMobile, and that it attracts as much attention as the original Zune did. Let us finally hope that all the OEMs currently making mobile phones with WinMob end up realising MS is stabbing them in the back, and switch to something like Android.
Microsoft needs its WinMob division killed for good. The world would be much happier if the remaining mobile touch platforms were iPhone, Web OS and Android.
it just made me think, yea, the Zune is a disaster because it represents a knife in the back to all MS hardware partners, and this Pink thing may as well be called, “Fuck You Windows Mobile” Phone (TM).
But to the Windows Defenders like Paul Thurrott, the Zune is a huge success because HE LIKES THE THING.
So when millions upon millions of Mac users love their machines and Apple gets the highest satisfaction ratings year after year after year. The Mac is a flop, becuase it has 5-10% of the market. In this case Paul will pull some magical 2% rating Globally, as if anyone is keeping track of this shit in Mainland China, Russia, Africa and Eastern Europe.
What do I predict? Whatever MS does, Paul Thurrott and his ilk will love it, and start comparing marketshare number to… you guessed it… the Mac. They’ll say, “but Apple have shunned ALL OEMs, and they seem to be doing OK”
Bottom line, MS is chasing a moving target, as many of you have said. They’re getting killed by Google, Apple, and oh yea, Nintendo.
What still sells for MS? The product, ironically, that really nobody likes to use, and gets back usability ratings all the time. Windows. The Monopoly thing they pulled off back in the 80’s. Oh yea, Still milking that fuckin Cash Cow.
Lovely article, especially the way that more and more companies now know how MS operates.
The slime sinks to the bottom.
I seriously think it is unfortunate that Microsoft won’t be introducing Pink. A shame. I was truly looking forward to its just-deserved reception in the marketplace.
Read the whole article last night, was amazed at how truly inept, fumbling, idiotic, wasteful and traitorous M$ is even to its own partners.
Stay farrrr away from M$! Sinking rotted Titanic.
as soon as MS gets their head out of the sand and realizes they need to rewrite 100% of their code for EVERYTHING then maybe they will get somewhere…
It used to be Red, but was so washed up from the beginning they had to rename it
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Ballmer is like a fish jumping after whatever shiny object comes into his vision. He rarely foresees the consequences of his actions. He has truly blundered Microsoft into a death spiral. Microsoft is such a behemoth that it is hard to comprehend that the company might fail, but Ballmer’s stewardship has seen the foundations of the company eroded. The chickens are coming home to roost.
I thought Pink was a highly successful and popular musician
Microsoft is a mess. There is NO over arching, guiding vision.
Within the mobile market, you have 3 separate little, but very expensive, empires. These people are only looking out for themselves. That’s it.
If anyone was running Microsoft, this would not have happened. But Nobody is.
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This is what is sounds like: Let’s throw them all in the ring, and they and fight each other. The last one standing has to be the strongest and the best, Right? Wrong. They all fatally injured each other. They ALL are gone and you have Nothing to show for your great idea.
That person deserves a promotion!
It is a very informative article 10 out of 10.
Microsoft even copies Apple’s failures. Before the return of Jobs, Apple also had a project named Pink, and it ended in cancellation.
Microsoft needs to clean house on it’s leadership, and promote people who will focus on Microsoft’s core money-making businesses (Windows and Office). With all this infighting and internal discord, Microsoft sounds like Apple in the early 1990’s.