Check out this article at Engadget.com.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/22/kin-listed-as-at-least-240-million-writeoff-in-microsoft-earnin/
Mark my words, bad product design will cost you. In Microsoft’s case, it costs them $240 million! $240 million! Most companies will never see that kind of revenues in their lifetime. It is very critical, I mean absolutely critical to have a great Product Design team.
In my opinion, Kin was a flawed product from the beginning. It was touted for a different market. A market which in my opinion did not exist. My guess is MSFT released this product so as to find a reason to bury the product managers and the team behind it. I have read numerous reports that internal wars @ Microsoft were largely responsible for this product. My Q: “What was the CEO of the company doing?” and why he isn’t held accountable for this gaffe.
This is a serious rookie mistake from a corporation like MSFT. This is good, however, as it is a classic case study in bad product design.
Louis Carabini
Innovation is a vital ingredient of business success. 2 This is why in most companies product design is very important. Product design is the efficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products. It is different from industrial design because the latter usually deals with craft design and mass production of goods.