KIN debacle explained

July 16, 2010 | By Surur

kin team pretending to work

From the desk of a member of the macbook-totting, iPhone using Danger/KIN team, prior to his merger with the Windows Phone 7 team.

With Microsoft cutting jobs in any case, maybe they should all just have been let go…

Another picture after the break.

Removed at request of Jeremy Duvall, Software Engineer at Microsoft, who claims to be a passionate software engineer who specializes in building and maintaining high quality teams to bring innovative and excellent products to market.

However, imagine a desk with 3 pieces of Danger mementos on the desk, and a variety of executive toys, and an Apple sticker,which makes it clear this is one team member who never really integrated, and did not want to either.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged kin, opinion, windows phone 7

mmm

he uses an iphone, i dont know how anyone could be passionate about their product their making and own/love the competitors product. people like this should have been canned immedietely.

Black

It is sort of backwards.

http://twitter.com/adamUCF @adamUCF

Ouch! But I must say, he is running Windows 7 and there's lots of MS employees that use Macs running Windows.
http://twitter.com/adamUCF @adamUCF

Notice the Apple sticker on the cabinet? That's way too far. It seems he's pretty disgruntled about the merger. Are we to assume he got layed off? Or does he just feel like he's had his personality removed? If it's the latter, its pretty childish to act that way before even giving it a shot. If he's not already quit/been fired, it definitely seems like his attitude is worthy of being canned. And this kinda fits in nicely ith some of the comments on the mini microsoft blog saying that all the Danger employees acted… well… like this guy.
NuShrike

So, as I said before, there's no way this team can integrate that quickly into Windows Phone 7. All that MS PR is BS.

It took quite a while for the ATI team to integrate with AMD, and then the mobile team got sold off to Qualcomm. Who can get their footing with all these changes. This is why ATI/AMD/Qualcomm 3D still sucks compared to PowerVR, on mobile.

http://intensedebate.com/people/chinch chinch

Integrating QUICKLY is irrelevant.

the KIN team was clearly lazy and poorly organized (see robbie's dismissal) and late on the holiday 2009 target for phones.

in a poor economy the remaining KIN team can supplement the WP7 professionals who handle the bulk of the load as they have since day 1.

http://twitter.com/chmun77 @chmun77

Maybe we should pictures of Apple employee desks too? See what we can find from their desks?
http://intensedebate.com/people/martinschmidler martinschmidler

Not a shocker to me. Mini MSFT wrote in his blog that a lot of the employees were frustrated because the management simply screw it. The devs basically knew how to make a good product but they simply weren't allowed to and then waited for a new job to come… sad thing.
Max

KIN is a good product. Unfinished, mispriced, but trully innovative – fully integrated in the cloud and social networks.

bkwmiata

Yeah, I still wonder what sort of patent MS got out of that deal. I wonder if the money garnered from leasing those patents will ever come close to the money they spent by Danger.

bkwmiata

patents*

http://intensedebate.com/people/ParsaCalavera ParsaCalavera

someone has set him/her up
http://intensedebate.com/people/djguapo djguapo

Another day, another anti-KIN post.

Sigh.
whats weak this week

This has to be the lamest attempt at fishing for a "scoop" that I've ever seen. First off, I count more Microsoft/KIN swag in the photo than I can count Danger swag. The author gripes about "3 pieces of Danger mementos" but I easily see at least 5 Microsoft/Kin items in the same photo. I don't know what tech workers you might work with, but where I come from, most of them are *notorious* swag addicts. Heaven forbid he didn't burn all of his previous company's swag in deference to his new insect overlords. Author gains +1 lame.

Also the obvious irony of the "I'm pretending to work sign" is lost on nobody but the author here – the people who have signs like that on their desks are the ones who tend to work their tails off. The people who pretend to work usually don't go around advertising that fact. Author gains +1 lame.

As for iphones, if working for Microsoft and having an iPhone were a firing offense, a good third of the company would be let go overnight – ever sat in a meeting with a bunch of MS marketing/management types? The if you took all the iPhones they toss on the conference table, you would be able to stack them to the ceiling. Author gains +1 lame.

Surur

All those excuses had a chance to fly is the KIN was not such a crippled, failed product. Given that the software team could not even include a calculator, I am not giving then the benefit of the doubt.

BTW, since I removed the other picture and blurred the main one, how are you seeing the swag? Do you know the desk in question?

Paul

I don't find the employee attitude commendable, but the real problem here was management. Or more accurately lack thereof.
http://intensedebate.com/people/chinch chinch

having an iPhone is one thing (it's not like they could use a KIN or WP7 device 6 months ago in real-life) but the desk IS FITTING of a kin employee.

What is the phrase from animal house… fat, drunk & stupid is no way to go thru life son.

The KIN team collectively must have been a sad, stupid, LAZY, comfortable bunch. It was over 8 months late and the best part of KIN they aped 100% from ZuneHD. ROTFLMAO the gross, utter incompetence.
da9th_one

i wonder who got their ass chewed out to the tune of censoring the photo…lol…