Microsoft unveiled a new smartphone line called KIN on Monday, the first time the computer software giant has controlled both the software and hardware of a phone, dpa reported.
The Kin, which will come in two versions, is aimed at the burgeoning lower end of the smartphone market. Dubbed a share-phone by Microsoft executives at the San Francisco launch event, the Kin phones are aimed at younger users and have a strong emphasis on the integration of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
The phones, KIN ONE and KIN TWO are being made by Sharp and will go on sale through the Verizon network in the US next month.
In Europe, the Kin models will be available on the Vodafone network and will be launched in the autumn.Details on pricing were not made available at the launch event.
The announcement was seen as one of the opening salvos in Microsoft's bid to shore up its waning fortunes in the ever-growing market for smartphones which are increasingly supplanting traditional computers to access the internet. While the company's Windows software remains dominant in laptop and desktop computers, Microsoft trails badly to rivals like Apple and Google in smartphone software, and also in software that runs netbooks and tablet computers.
Both the new phones feature touchscreens, high-resolution cameras and integration with Microsoft's Zune media service. They also feature slide-out keyboards and a home screen that automatically updates with the latest events from user-designated sites, such as text messages, Facebook updates, emails, tweets, shared images as well as more traditional phone logs.
The phones also boast a green area on the screen dubbed the "spot" onto which owners can drag content, such as videos, and then decide how to share it and who to share it with. The phones automatically synch content between the users accounts on different devices.
The KIN phones are a separate initiative from Microsoft's new mobile phone operating system, called Windows Phone 7 series, which is due out later this year and which will integrate the company's other products including its Bing search engine, Zune media marketplace and Xbox Live video-game network.
"We saw an opportunity to design a mobile experience just for this social generation - a phone that makes it easy to share your life moment to moment," said Robbie Bach, Microsoft's president of the Entertainment and Devices Division.
"As we were working on Windows Phone 7, we decided to specifically go after this target audience," he added. "It was customized for the social networking audience. Windows Phone 7 is about simplifying people's lives. This phone is about amplifying people's social lives."
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