Background
Kin is a family of mobile phones from Microsoft that were sold through Verizon Wireless. After several years of development, Kin became part of the larger Windows Phone family. On April 12, 2010, Microsoft announced two Kin models, both available online on May 6 ， 2010. The mobiles were due for release in Autumn of 2010 on Vodafone for
Europe. But European plans were scrapped due to poor U.S sales. Since then, the two mobiles have ceased production.
Microsoft KIN mobiles have been rumors that it will be IPhone’s killer. But at last, it got a sad ending after a perfect start.
SWOT Analysis
Strength
1.
Sharing Experience ( Cloud Storage): Cloud storage allows Kin’s users sharing their experiences via the internet with the browser. And also it can automaticlly save data in a free online storage.
2.
Good positioning for target customers: Men and women between the age of 15 and 30. Teenagers will be the major customers for Kin
Weakness
1.
Beautiful Interface: Beautiful interface could not improve the system of Kin, however it makes the system more complicated and lack of basic functions. For example, KIN does not support the installation of application software and expansion of storage.
2.
Following-up Software: Following-up software was not created after the KIN came into the market. Thus the leading new system could not play a role.
3.
Excessive pricing could not fit for target customers.
Opportunities
1.
Finding the differentiations: A large number of mobile phones focused on the link of using which provid a broader opportunity for KIN to find the new market.
2.
Low price: The price of KIN could be reduced for its target customer, including the price of products and the application program downloads.
Threaten
Fierce competitors: IPhone and Android have a large part of consumers in smartphone market and the development of their systems are more perfect than KIN’s
Product positioning
Nowadays, mobile phone has become one of the everyday necessities, all the phone-consumers will list their corresponding expenditure in their budget. So the cost of every phone specifically, there should be the cost of the phone, the service charges, maintenance and function fees, Microsoft Kin has set up a quite spectacular plan for itself, nevertheless the phone market has been gathered by various competitors. Microsoft has its monopoly position in the field of software. Generally, Microsoft Kin has its own advantage because of the techniques come from Microsoft. In fact, the product positioning is ambiguous is one of the reasons which lead to the doom of itself. New media and new technologies earn groups of consumers to participate the groups of smart phone owners, by catching up with Apple.
Microsoft Kin is not a proactive actor during the campaign of smart phone, let alone sharing the same market.
Further more, there is no highlight of Microsoft Kin, actually. In other words, there are no competitive advantages for
Microsoft Kin to fight against with the other competitors. Because what he kept for features have been owned by the others, and the necessary conditions for a smart phone are not that definite. Before entering a market, the lacking of analysis of the layout and structure, is fatal to the long-term development.
There is another point has something with the price. The phone itself does not cost that much, but the functions of a phone, will also need extra fees to make it work. Since the target consumers are limited to the youngsters, the

corresponding expenditure should obey the rules and habits of this group. Obviously, Microsoft Kin ignored this issue and went against the positioning.
My suggestion is focusing on the positioning and price, combining the strengths and the shortage of the market. Finding and filling out the leaks of the market, other than cramming into a relatively saturated market. Microsoft prefers to take use of the techniques and innovation, instead of imitating blindly.
Life cycle
Due to the failure of Microsoft Kin, it experienced a relatively short cycle. At first, the smart phone market is saturated with different brands, which have quite strong reputation. So if there were leaks and shortcomings in the beginning of its development, it would lose the chance of long-term development. At the same time, the innovation and reform of new products are also the shortcomings of Microsoft Kin, which is hardly suitable to the tastes of the youngsters. Actually, as to the communication strategy, it is essential to the launch plan of a product. By taking the use of the media, advertising, promotion, etc, letting the products keep fresh and energetic image to the consumers. On this side, Microsoft Kin made a mistake, too. He should continue and renew concessive strategies and products to support the existence in the market.
The reasons for the Microsoft Kin’s failure can be concluded into these parts
1. The functioning system is not that well-prepared and improved,
2. It is not a real sense of smart phone, but the price is almost the same as other smart phones.
3. Their target market and their product positioning are not combined perfectly.
We are in the time of high speed and renewing, so as the mobile phones. If there is something wrong during the first stage of a new product, what will be reflected directly to the life cycle is that the new product is on the way of dying.
Canvas
The strategy canvas is both a diagnostic and an action framework for building a compelling blue ocean strategy.
1 There are six elements should be considered in cellphone industry:the price,the functions,the operators,the social net,data share and the system. From the strategy canvas analysis,it is clearly show as follow:
At first, the smart phone has good performance in system,function,social net and data share. Currently,the smart phone is regarded as a multiple terminal entertainment, so it has a high market share while has a high price. On the contrary,the feature phone only has entertainment and wifi function, but it can meet the basic need ,such as sent message and calling with a very low price. In the case of microsoft kin, its functions are based on feature phone, however, the high price is very close to smart phone.
The only light pot of microsoft kin is its data share function and social network,e.g.facebook and twitter. Kin's objected customer is teenagers who addicted in social network by cellphone, while the monthly fee is too high to accept for teenagers, that is why the sales of kin is only 10,000 phones in U.S. and 500 phones in China.What worst is that microsoft have already closed the kin store,which caused the customers can not share the data and use facebook. It leaded the kin failed.
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ERRC Grid
According to the analysis above, it needs to reduce the price and increases some competitiveness. Furthermore, there are more improveness could be made. In following text, Errc grid tool will be applied to futher analyze the case. With this analytic tool we can identify what factors that should be considered to eliminate, reduce, raise and create according to existing market standards.
Kin as a feature phone which is built with social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter at their core and targeted at teens and social networking addicts need to raise its ability to collaborate with more social networks to satisfy
1 P8, W. Chan Kim&Renée Mauborgne, Blue ocean Strategy

consumers demands. Kin only has one operator this made Kin lacks of competition that consumer has to sign a contract with its operator for monthly data plan. So at the first step, it must increase its operators. Because it uses Kin studio to save all users content to the web, it has to perfect this system.
Kin continues emphasizing on sharing your experience with each other, thus it should also raise its capacity of sharing experience. As a feature phone, its complex operator interface make some troubles for users cause they have to pay time on how to use it. Kin only emphasizes its social networking, however, it lacks of some basic functions like timed alarm, calender and so on. These functions it should create.
Kin phones have a browser and can access social networking sites through widgets. But Microsoft crippled the overall functionality of the device by not allowing apps or games on the phone.That means users ended up paying for a smartphone but got an amped-up feature phone instead. It has to create its App store for the convenience of users to download some softwares to use. Kin is better to create some development tools to develop some softwares or platforms to attract new consumers and add more extra value for it.
Buyer Utility Map
Objective :
Capture the teenagers market
We use the Buyer utility map in this case to analyze which utility can be offered to the customer.
During 6 stages of the buyer experience cycle
(purchase, delivery, use, supplements, maintenance,
Buyer experience perspective
:
Flexibility in apps & games
Internet
Cheap
Utility perspective:
Social networking
Cloud storage
New orientation:
Easy to purchase, low-price
Improve the maintenance
Recycle disposal), there are six utility levers: Customer productivity, Simplicity, Convenience, Risk, Fun &
Image and Environmental friendliness.
Reasons of this product’s failures in buyers’ aspect:
The failures as mentioned above, the price is too high for its target consumers and it is unable to download apps or games. It wants to capture the teenagers market. However, it just simply emphasis on social networking and sharing of content. The developers ignore that: teenagers not only want to share with others by internet, but also make their phone special by themselves and have flexibility in apps and games.
Find new orientations:
Apple and Android are the leaders in today’s smart phone market. They have already done a best work in the stage of using phones and service. It can be seen that there are lots of function they provided in the customer productivity, convenience and fun & image levers.
Therefore, the developer should firstly consummate KIN’s function to match the basic perspective of teenagers. Then, based the buyer utility map above, it is clear to see which utility levers and buyer experience stages are focused by current smart phone industry and which are open for exploitation. KIN can pay more attention on purchasing,
1 st : Social Networking
Users(teenagers)
2 nd : Other
Smartphones
Users
3 rd : Customers
Who Don’t Know
What Microsoft
KIN Is maintenance and disposal stages. Customers can buy the product by making a simple contract in a very low price, and gain more convenience within the stage of maintenance. The company can help customer disposal their KINs and it is environmental friendly.
Three tiers of non-customers
First Tier:” Soon-to-be” non-customers.
For Microsoft KIN, the first tier of non-customers could be the teenagers who always connect devices for their social life on

Facebook and Twitter. Even though the KIN phone was aimed at users of social networking and Microsoft described the phones' target customers as men and women between the ages of 15 and 30, teenagers are a huge market.
There are mainly two reasons: firstly, it is the price. The KIN phones were too pricey, they weren't exactly smartphones, but they were priced like one. The KIN One cost $130, and the Kin Two cost $150 with a two-year Verizon contract.
However, all KIN phones require a data plan, that means a $70 a month minimum on the bill. For most of teenagers, that is a lot of money to be handing over to a cellphone company. Secondly, no apps and no games.
Second Tier:”Refusing” non-customers.
For Microsoft KIN, the second tier of non-customers could be the other smartphones users who choose Iphone, Motorola or HTC instead of KIN. KIN is a device that would make it easy to share photos, videos and access social networking feeds, however, almost every smartphone today can do that, and at times better than KIN.
Third Tier:”Unexplored” non-customers
For Microsoft KIN, the third tier of non-customers could be customers who don’t know what KIN is. Compared with other mobile-phone makers, for consumers, they are familiar with its word processors than its smartphone
Conclusion
After analysing with above BOS tools, we found that there were several reasons for Kin’s failure. Firstly, it is overpriced.
Kin did not have the functions as smartphone, but its price was at the same level of the smartphone. Especially, Kin's potential customers are targeted to young people who are hardly to accept such high price. Secondly, it did not support to instal application software and there is no apps available. Thirdly, it was lack of competitive advantages. The features that Microsoft emphased to promote are very common for the smartphone. Apart from that, even the basic functions for mobilephone are still missing. As a result, in the competitive phone market, Kin can hardly attract the people ’attention to consider.
New orientations
The suggestions will be applied with BOS to find new market which would be less competitive but more profitable.
According to the price positioning problem of Kin, if the target consumers are young people, the price has to be reduced.
In BOS theories, simultaneous in pursuit of differentiation and low cost can make the company irrelevant to the competition.
2 On the contrary to traditional rules that choice made from low cost or differentiation, BOS requires company to meet the two elements. In terms of differenciation, it is one of the major problem that needs to be concerned in this case. Kin failed because of missing competitive advantage comparing with their rivals. In fact, the differenciation for Kin is its cloud storage. However, Kin did not put much effort on this smart innovation. Microsoft should focus on promoting its cloud storage rather than the functions that commonly owned by other phones. The clound storage also creates and captures new demand for customers, because it allows phone users to backup their data when the phone was scraped or lost. However, it is necessary to have basic phone functions as well.
Second strategy will be fucused on the rule of break conventional boundaries, Microsoft perhaps needs to collaborate with other company to build platform which can instal third party’s apps.
Last one is to develop Non-customers. In addition to major target customers, it is possible to develop other potential consumers. According to the rule, a company must begin by reorienting its strategic focus from customers to noncustomers of the industry.
i3 Since refusing non-customers and unexplored non-customers can make company more competitive. Consequently, shifting company’s strategic focus from current competition to alternatives and
Noncustomers would make the company attain more benefits.
2 P41, Sonia.Pennacchiotti, Lecture Handouts, MKT ST PL S2 SC
3 P10, W. Chan Kim&Renée Mauborgne, Blue ocean Strategy

References