Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Microsoft Launches iPhone Competitor
Teaming up with HTC Corp., Samsung Electronics Co., Sharp, and other mobile makers, Microsoft unveiled a line of mobile phones geared toward teens and young adults, attempting to capture market share with its social-networking focus.
Microsoft is trying to mark its territory in the mobile phone market, as well as diversifying its product line-up into an explosive market. Historically, Microsoft has been a software provider in the wireless industry to different handset makers, however, it has been losing ground with the launch of Apple’s iPhone and Google Inc.’s Android platform.
“Kin is an interesting attempt to target the 15 to 25 market,” said Ross Rubin, consumer electronics and wireless industry analyst at market research firm NPD Group in an interview with Reuters.
Rubin believes that the success of the software giant’s phones will hinge on the pricing of its data plans, which is yet to be announced. Microsoft spokeswoman Melissa Havel has opted not to comment or release details about the pricing of the phones.
The phones have been branded as Kin One and Kin Two, produced by Japan’s Sharp Corp. and sold by Verizon Wireless, based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. and U.K.-based Vodafone Group Plc.
Microsoft President Robbie Bach, who leads the mobile-phone division, launched the phones on April 12 at an event in San Francisco.
“We said, ‘Look, there’s a segment here that we can really go after deeply,” Bach said on Monday in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “And once you decide to go deep, you can’t go part way and say we’ll do the software and then we’ll hand it off to somebody else. You have to really be involved in the whole process.”
The new phones will be sold in May in the United States, and subsequently Europe in the last quarter of the year—on Vodafone’s European network.
According to the vice president of Microsoft’s mobile communications marketing group, there are possibilities of it developing hardware for other parts of the market in the future. However, Bach has reiterated that the company prefers to work with handset producers that create their own hardware.
“This isn’t a Microsoft product,” said Robbie Bach. “Sharp is not just the manufacturer, they sell the phones to Vodafone, not Microsoft. This is a very traditional model, it’s just that we were more involved in the design and the hardware with Sharp.”
Sales of data plans at Verizon Wireless rose 46 percent in the fourth quarter, contributing almost a third of the company’s wireless-service revenues.
The target demographic is clearly focused on those who are savvy with social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.
The camera, touch screen, and slide out keyboard interface is designed to move seamlessly between videos, photos, text messages, and Web sites and to simultaneously share content with others.
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