So it has begun, Microsoft announced that slowing (killing) the KIN product:
“We have made the decision to focus exclusively on Windows Phone 7 and we will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned. Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases. We will continue to work with Verizon in the U.S. to sell current KIN phones.”
This whole KIN thing feels to me as a “pet project” from some Microsoft high-executive who saw “social apps on the web” as the killer app and couldn’t decide how to deliver it and took forever and now realizes it is not going to work (due to timing or other). The hardest thing when creating a product is to know when to kill it. But because Microsoft waited to make this decision 1) Microsoft looks silly, 2) looks as a product failure, 3) costs millions of dollars in development and marketing and the cost of inventory for the devices that will not sell. A costly operation. The good thing about this is less distractions for the company allowing them to focus on the next generation core OS Windows Phone 7. But as a technology/product person I do see unseen benefits to this failed product: 1) product/roadmap unification, and 2) the exercise of transferring R&D/IP to the Product group. Both are important and that can be very hard to accomplish.
That said, while there still space/opportunity for the Windows mobile OS, Microsoft won’t be the leader of the space; playing catch-up is not leading.
So what is or should be Microsoft’s strategy for mobile?
For a while it has been very clear to me that Microsoft has been ignoring what probably is their most important strategy when it comes to mobile…
Obviously they are committed to the (Windows Phone 7) mobile OS, which is fine, but what about apps?
Microsoft has failed to leverage their own strength and expertise with apps. By now they could have been the leader on a number of mobile app categories, for example, productivity apps such as mobile versions of Word, PowerPoint, access to Exchange, and gaming, across *all* mobile platforms, with versions of the apps that makes the best out of the specific mobile platforms. But to accomplish this they must breakaway from the “Windows only” mentality for mobile…
I’m not sure why such a “simple” decision to rule their own app space has taken so long; no decision is a decision. If can’t decide how to make this happen just go acquire DataViz; I’m sure it is not the first time Microsoft has approached them, except this time DataBiz is going to cost more…
Microsoft, don’t ignore the apps space, your own app space…
…and from the developers perspective, don’t forget that to succeed make sure your Windows mobile environment does provide good developer support, ecosystem, app store and developer incentives.
ceo
> So what is or should be Microsoft’s strategy for mobile?
I say: ANYTHING.
Same for desktop, they seem to have no strategy. It takes multi-page brochures to explain which version of an OS you should buy. They need a solid leader who has a UX or marketing core, and makes simple, solid decisions that stick.
Their strategy should be to do what the successful competitors do: figure out something you can do to delight the customer.
For Apple, that has meant provide the user with a smooth, predictable experience that individuals can take at their own speed. For Android, that has meant hard-core technical features and a sense of total control. For BlackBerry, it has meant the world’s best corporate e-mail.
Microsoft still owns the enterprise, and notwithstanding the fact that the Starbucks across the street from me is always full, corporate IT isn’t going away soon. It IS being forced into opening up to 1990′s technologies like Web2.0, customer social networks and support apps for mobile workers and customers, and like you say, MS is MIA. Office for mobiles would be a good way to protect their ownership of The Document; otherwise MS risks waking up one day to find that some BrandX document company has its apps on every mobile device in the world. And that means virtually every adult in the world will be using something other than MS apps.
The other way would be to hustle IT into compatibility with new mobile browsers; the number of IT shops who think they’re doing their firms a favor by sticking with IE 6 is astonishing. Foot-dragging will further wall off those shops from mobile opportunities and it provides MS with zero revenue potential — it merely delays the competitors. That IE is the least progressive browser today is a testament to how MS has voluntarily abandoned the 21st century.