Gee's Blog World: Windows Phone Live website could be the only good thing to come out of Microsoft's Kin disaster

Monday, July 26, 2010

Windows Phone Live website could be the only good thing to come out of Microsoft's Kin disaster

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Web services, Microsoft, Mobile

When Microsoft killed the Kin, its cheap social-networking-focused phone, it was written up as a total failure. Not everything about the Kin concept was faulty, though. Maybe I'm reading too much into half a sentence of speculation from our pals at Engadget, but it sounds like the website that handled syncing for the Kin, Kin Studio, might be the inspiration behind a similar site for Windows Phone 7.

Windows Phone Live, detailed yesterday at Microsoft's Partner Conference, offers media syncing and remote wipe features for Windows Phone 7, and it sounds pretty damn useful. You can move your photos, OneNote notes and contacts, as well as remotely control features of your phone in case it gets lost or stolen. Engadget says you can wipe, lock or locate your phone with Windows Phone Live or (this is my favorite option) just make it ring incessantly until the thief abandons it.

Anyway, since Windows Phone 7 doesn't launch until later this year, I have no way of knowing how much (if at all) Windows Phone Live is like Kin Studio. The concept of a fully-featured, Web-based way to interact with your phone is a good one, though, and it deserves to outlive the Kin (however poorly-thought-out) that device might be.

Okay, Microsoft folks: feel free to jump in and leave comments telling me these two things are completely unrelated. I'd love some more details!