Life and death of Microsoft Kin: the inside story
By Chris Ziegler 
posted July 2nd 2010 4:30PM
posted July 2nd 2010 4:30PM
Project Pink -- the initiative that would ultimately become Kin -- began life under the direction of free-spirited exec J Allard even before Microsoft had acquired Danger in early 2008, though the company knew full well that it would ultimately need Danger's cloud computing expertise to execute on the vision. As it turns out, Danger's intellectual property was more important to Microsoft than its manpower, which might go a long way toward explaining stories we've heard in the past of Danger's Palo Alto headquarters looking like a ghost town not long after the purchase. Initially, both ODMs and carriers were tripping over each other for the opportunity to be involved and launch the product; ultimately, Sharp and Verizon were selected as the headline partners. Knowing Allard and his track record, the vision was probably grandiose and easy to fall in love with -- and needless to say, no one had been quoting a mid-2010 launch back then.
So with Danger filling in the last piece of the puzzle, Allard and his team got underway, completely separate from the Windows Phone (née Windows Mobile) team led by senior vice president Andy Lees. Bear in mind this was before the so-called "reboot" that led to the Windows Phone 7 that we know today; at that point, Microsoft was still cranking on an older vision that would ultimately be scrapped. Whether the initial plan in Pink's earliest days was to use Danger's legacy Java-based platform is unclear, but apparently, that plan ultimately evolved: Allard's intention had still been to avoid Windows Mobile's underpinnings, but he'd wanted to pull together bits and pieces from across the company -- presumably mostly from Zune, which was his baby -- to create a new Kin platform that suited the product's needs, not to share a platform with anything in Lees' department.
To get anywhere, a project inside Microsoft needs an executive sponsor, and for Pink, Allard had been that guy from day one. It was his baby. Of course, Allard was a visionary, an idea man; Lees -- like most Microsoft execs -- is a no-nonsense numbers guy, and to put it bluntly, he didn't like that Pink existed. To quote our sources, Lees was "jealous," and he was likely concerned that Kin was pulling mindshare (and presumably resources) from Windows Mobile's roadmap. With enough pressure, Lees ended up getting his way; Pink fell under his charge and Allard was forced into the background.
Having Lees in control changed everything, if for no other reason than he didn't care about the project at all. |
At some point prior to launch, the Kin team knew it was screwed. We've confirmed that Verizon did, in fact, pull the rug out from under them -- the planned data pricing had changed and become much more expensive, which was supposed to be one of Kin's top selling points. Voices on the team about huge, critical missing features like an app store fell on deaf ears, ostensibly because Lees just wanted to get the product out the door to meet the contract and wash his hands of it. The departures of Allard and Bach -- which our sources would not blame on Kin, at least not alone -- were just what Lees needed to finish Kin off, and that's exactly what he did earlier this week. We're told that Kin has sold fewer than 10,000 units in total, and the future of its support -- planned software updates and the like -- rests largely in Verizon's hands, since it's the one and only carrier that will ever have offered it.
While it's hard to argue that Kin is an awful product, the saddest part of the story is that many of the people responsible for it knew it was -- they were largely victims of political circumstance, forced to release a phone that was practically raw in the middle. Though Microsoft's official stance is that the group is being integrated with the Windows Phone 7 team, it's a major culture clash -- the two groups operated completely independently from one another -- and unofficially, Lees' intention is to keep them out of the first release. In other words, many, if not most Kin staffers are literally twiddling their thumbs at their desks, and it's unclear who will get to keep their jobs in the long term. No decisions have yet been made about what elements of Kin will find their way into future Windows Phone releases; though Kin One and Kin Two were fatally flawed, there's no arguing that they'd brought some really great concepts to the table (notably the Kin Studio) that it'd be tragic to see fall through the cracks of a Microsoft conference room.
@Wesscoast
I wrote that wrong. I meant "$30 a month is too much for a parent to spend on 1 child." 2 maybe, 3 would be ideal, but Verizon is too stuck up to allow that.
Microsoft is filled with and controlled by people like Andy Lees. Bean-counters, visionless, lemmings, copy-others-but-can't-come-up-with-anything-original, i.e., Gates-Ballmer Jr.
@bluelobe You do know that people like you have been saying this stuff for 20 years now. Windows and Office is like a VC cash and R&D generator for dozens of *industries* that exist within Microsoft, not just VP pet-projects like Courier and Kin. Believe me, every VP has one, it is up to them whether to be butthurt by their losses or keep cranking out the cash and stay in their position.
WP7 is around because Lees is a hard ass, and didn't give up the ghost when iPhone came along and convinced the tech bubble pundits to start treating existing platforms like red-headed stepchildren.
Have any of you actually looked at WP7? It looks to me like Lees and Allard are probably sippin beers on the 4th and laughing at all this crap you all say. We'd all love for the Microsoft VP landscape to be filled with the kind of people that show up in Us Weekly, but it just isn't so.
They gotta make money, end of story. For the ones like Allard that are trying to be the next Steve Jobs, they are going to have to be able to come back from some pathetic attempts, just like SJ did.
This seems to be the same story all around microsoft. Its sad, because the company has a lot of potential, but have become a money monger instead of pushing new concepts or technology.
For whatever reason, microsoft departments have a jealousy thing bouncing around, with departments literally stepping out of their way to undermine another departments projects so they come out on top. Who the hell made this mess?
Hahaha
I cannot believe that a multi billion dollar company would operate this way... "We're told that Kin has sold fewer than 10,000 units" -- I am speachless...can anyone take a guess at how many MILLIONS of dollars, development, research, and effort were completely 100% lost, flushed down the toilet, because of this asshole Lees?
The kin was a failure from the start.
Very onesided story here.
Are you sure engadget did not get this from Allard directly, or from a report?
It leaves out things such as why on earth did they spend $1B buying Danger when they could have got the tech for vastly less.
Why did pink thing they would have real backing to produce yet another phone OS....
Definitely one of the best pieces I've seen on any tech blog.
This Andy Lee guy, should simply just be fired.
@kobor42 I dunno about that...after all, he did significantly delay, if not completely sabotage, Microsoft's chances of being truly competitive in the smartphone market. I don't see where we have THAT much to complain about. :-D Too bad about the Kin itself, though.
There is so much missing from this story. Yes the upper echelons of Microsoft are a bit of a mess. But I think Andy Lees is being given way to much credit for screwing this up. He was certainly part of the problem but he played a minor role when compared to the actual engineering leadership of the PMX (Premium Mobile Experience) group that was in charge of Pink. My the time Andy was moved over the Mobile Unit, the wheels of Pink failure were already set in motion. He certainly could of stepped up and tried to correct the course of the ship, but he should not be the target for the blame.
Roz Ho was in charge of the entire PMX/Pink effort. This was her very first (and assume last) mobile effort. Previously she was in charge of the Mac office efforts at Microsoft. I have never met a less competent leader. She was shallow and completely self absorbed and will find any excuse to talk about herself. She made it clear to the entire team that she has a lot of money and loved to talk about it. She has houses in Redmond, the Los Altos Hills, a condo at Squaw Valley and an apartment in Chicago. She has more than 4 cars one of which is an Audi A10. We only knew these details because she was always talking about them. Nobody cared but she couldn't help it. The ultimate expression of her clueless pomposity was than during the heat of the development battle, when the project was struggling mightily with technical and personnel problems, she took three weeks off to hike to the top of mount Kilimanjaro. And while going on vacation at that time was poor timing for a leader of a troubled project, she made it 1000 times worse by calling attention to it. She wanted a Pink prototype to be given to her so she could call the team from the top of the mountain. The damn thing was so unstable at the time and the team had to get on a conference call at midnight to hear her call in. The call never came through and we were supposed to get on the call the next night because she wasn't at the top yet or something. The call didn't come through again and we were told she couldn't get a signal. But the entire episode was text book incompetence. Nero, if you are done with that fiddle, Roz needs a turn.
Then there was Matt Bienke, Roz's Business Development twit. This guy was the one who sold Verizon on how incredible this project was going to be. His speaking to the team was a morale killer. He was the perfect Roz protege, pompous and clueless. He was like a politician who has been speaking BS for so long he can come to believe the nonsense he spouted. He needs a share of the Pink blame as he constantly over promised what the engineering team could accomplish and stay on schedule. Booya Matt.
Just so you understand how terrible these two were in their roles as leaders, both Roz and Matt were assigned executive coaches to review their communications because they didn't have the internal ability to detect when they might destroy morale through their clueless statements.
But there are more people who really need to be mentioned. The engineering and test leads on both the client and service teams had ample opportunity to course correct but were too weak. I will not mention their names but they know who they are. They were all long time Microsoft employees (12+ years each) who have been practically trained by their years at Microsoft to just "finish" the project at any cost. They know that they will not be punished in any way for their failure. They were all veterans of failure at XBox (1 Billion dollar write off for flawed hardware), Zune, MSN, Hotmail among others. They continue to get their yearly bonuses, promotions, and stock grants in spite of years of working on failed projects.
And that is my final point. If Andy Lees/Steve Ballmer wants to save Microsoft, they need to start with a dynamic cultural change, stop rewarding failure. STOP REWARDING FAILURE.
@WilliamTell Microsoft seems like it's being run by a fantastic bunch of clowns. Roz Ho is a MILF, though...sounds like that's all she's good for. Too bad for all of the engineers and people who really do the work.
well I saw that coming... look at it
my garage door opener looks better
Windows Mobile Phone has flopped too many times. Kin was left dead in a few weeks. IPhone and Android are far far ahead. Android is free and open, I will never again choose something that is closed .....
Might not be the last of the too-expensive Microsoft flops if the Kinect actually does cost $150.
KIN... ect.