Will Kin be a Zune-grade hit?

Rodney Gedda

Rodney Gedda is the former deputy editor of CIO and former editor of Techworld.

This week Microsoft released what seemed to be an inevitable product – its own mobile device centre around digital content and social networking. The Kin looks like it can win a popular following, but must be more of a hit than its brethren Zune. Kin sports a “powered by Zune” media player and integrates with the Zune content service, but if the success of the Zune is anything to go by Microsoft might end up promoting Kin as its successor. A next-of-Kin perhaps?

Of course, if the Kin doesn’t make it as far as the Asia Pacific region, then Microsoft can’t attack the growing iPhone and Android markets in our region (and us journos will have one less handset to write about).

In addition, if the Kin won’t run Windows Mobile apps then its functionality is greatly diminished.

It’s all about social media with the Kin, which has its merits, but today’s smartphone revolution is as much about a rich computing experience as it is about communication.

I may write about the influence of social media on operating system development in the future, but for now the Kin is a prime example of how online services are dictating the direction of client devices – not the other way away around.

Back to today’s mobile phone market and how people consume multimedia content.

Dedicated portable music (and video) players may always have a place, but people generally have more of a need to carry a phone with them than a music player. And if that phone just happens to play music even better.

If Apple saw the writing on the wall for its iPod dominance it did a hell of a job converting people to the iPhone. I see just as many people listening to people on their phones as they would on a music player.

The Kin could easily obsolete the Zune the same way the iPhone obsoleted the iPod Touch.

It’s now up to Microsoft to keep learning what makes a healthy mobile phone ecosystem. It may be reluctant to compete with its Windows Mobile OEMs, and for good reason – it doesn’t need to.

Microsoft needs to make Windows Phone appealing to consumers of applications and social media.

The world now awaits Microsoft’s elbows between Apple and Google.