“After being labeled as one of Microsoft’s greatest failures having been pulled from sale after only six weeks during its original run, the Kin One and Kin Two are back on sale with Verizon,” Electronista reports. “With the re-release has come a slight name change to the Kin ONEm and Kin TWOm. Microsoft only sold 8,810 units during the initial product run, but hopes to turn the disastrous sales numbers around with more attractive pricing plans.”
Electronista reports, “This time, Verizon is selling the Kin ONEm for $20 on a two-year plan, while the Kin TWOm is being sold for $50 in a buy-one-get-one-free deal; the second phone included for the price is the LG Ally. There is also a $35 activation price. Still included is the Zune Pass option, but downloads are restricted to Wi-Fi and side-loading only. Monthly costs start at $40 for voice and an additional $10 for data.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Masochistsoft.
Marketing to Balmer :
“Our brain trust has finally determined why Apple’s is so successful. It’s not that their products are better, it’s that all their products have the first letter of their names in lower-case, like the ‘iPod’! We should re-release all our old crap with new names like zUNE and kIN and they’ll sell like hot-cakes!”
Balmer: “No. We don’t copy Apple. We innovate. We’re going to put the lower-case letter on the *end*! I like it a LOT… I mean a LOt ! “
To bad Lawrence Welk’s no longer with us. He’d have name the Kins: ah-ONEa and ah-TWOa
Balmer the bomber bombs OUTm
Maybe they’ll sell another 8000 units this time, and if they “re-launch” another 10 times, they will sell out the rest of the existing inventory.
DUHm
Somebody is getting a o Kin one or two for Christmas.
What a crappy Christmas gift. They can blame Santa Claus aka
Steve Ballmer.
Here a suggestion Microsoft should give a Kin one or two to every shareholder.
“But I wanted to park the Microsoft WindowsphonesevenMobile in there!”
“But Steve, we have.. about 5000 KINs still sitting in storage… What should we do?”
“Boys, tell the Kin team they’re back in business!!”
MS idea is right that the younger generation much prefers to text than to talk or email. However, I’m not sure that there is enough buzz out there to generate a lot of sales or excitement around the product.
The youngsters in our household and their friends certainly aren’t talking about it. But they are talking about iPhones, iPods, MacBook Air’s, and iPads.
I think the reason why they see Apple and Microsoft so differently is because of their respective cultures, not just their products.
And it comes through in their advertising, in their products, in their websites, and in their people.
Seriously Microsoft. Kin ONEm means what? Kin TWOm means what? Are these excrement euphemisms?
Here, I’m giving these away. They’re yours. They’ll make your creepy little chunks of crapware sell like vibrators:
KINky One
and
KINky Two
On the box put pictures of luxuriating girls in teddies and silky slinky negliges. Use deep sexy voiced babes saying seductive lines as the ringtones. Have 3 different Vibrate Modes: Lite, Dark and Extra KINky. The Microsoft KINky phones be the Xmas hit.
And no, I’m not for hire.