After HP acquired and killed the WebOS Smartphone platform, another one bites the dust. As we reported in march, the Danger group Microsoft acquired — a Java-based smartphone platform that pioneered messaging-oriented phones targeted at younger people — has been working for two years on “Pink,” a top secret project operating independently from Windows Mobile, released as the “KIN” platform.
KIN was pulled off the market in just 48 days after only selling a reported 500 units.
The company wrote in an official statement, “We have made the decision to focus on our Windows Phone 7 launch 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”.
The Verizon Wireless network charged users $70 per month for voice and data service, despite the device lacking any support for basic smartphone services such as calendar sync, instant messages, or even any email accounts other than Microsoft’s own.
You need to get your facts straight. HP has done anything *but* kill the webOS smartphone. Check out their new home page: Palm smartphones are featured front and center. If you read the press release HP wrote yesterday, you’ll notice “smartphone” is mentioned 8 times.
The Palm brand of smartphones is going to live on stronger than ever under HP’s care.
Hi, I’m sorry I missed that press release! Thanks for the pointer.
If what they say is true, it is actually a good news and let’s hope it is really their long term strategy and not just some “marketing talk”.
Hewlett-Packard chief executive Mark Hurd said last month that the company isn’t going to “spend billions of dollars trying to go into the smartphone business; that doesn’t in any way make any sense.” Given the new press release, that probably meant smartphones will always be part of the HP offer, but they will never be its core business.
Here’s my post about it and ZDNet’s original report:
http://surgeworksmobile.com/iphone/hp-entering-the-tablet-market-palms-webos-smartphone-platform-is-dead
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/hp-ceo-mark-hurd-talks-datacenters-networking-and-palm/35312?tag=mncol;txt
PS: The fact the existing Palm product line is on their home page doesn’t mean it’s “core” to their business though, I see it more as a move to avoid an abrupt drop in sales of units that are still in production. Just my 2 cents.
I totally understand where you’re coming from–a lot of us even in the webOS community thought Hurd was sounding the death knell for webOS smartphones. But in light of recent developments, I take a more optimistic point of view. As you say, smartphones probably won’t ever be core to HP’s business model, but I believe they’ll play a prominent part of their offering as time goes on.
At any rate, thanks for your response!