We already knew that Microsoft's KIN phones were an epic failure, but the question remained as to how much of an epic failure was it? John Gruber seems to think it was an enormous failure. As you all know, shortly after Microsoft launched their KIN One and KIN Two phones they pulled the plug on the whole project. It will remain being sold on Verizon Wireless, but there will be no further development on the social-centric devices. Instead, Microsoft is choosing to focus on their upcoming mobile OS, Windows Phone 7.


John Gruber posted on his popular technology blog, Daring Fireball, some rumored statistics on how many KIN phones were actually sold during its lifetime.

...A well-placed little birdie told me over the weekend that they sold a grand total of 503 Kins before they pulled the plug. 503.

 There you have it. 503 phones, Microsoft? Really? After being launched May 13th. After all of that poor advertising and "hype". There were still only 503 phones sold. That's not even sad. That's utterly humiliating, as many Microsoft employees feel. If these numbers are true as many suspect they are, it just goes to show that Microsoft is simply not Apple.

Update (7/8): A website by the name of PocketNow did some further digging into the story and found Microsoft may have sold more. Read about it here.