Too much has been said already so no sense repeating it, but I will share a few thoughts

• In large, complex organizations like Microsoft, often the people who rise to leadership positions are the "politicians"
• Politicians are about comprises which rarely produces a compelling product
• Political environment are about power; not the product; and definitely not the consumer
• It's not that Microsoft failed - failure should be celebrated subject to the caveat that the organization learns from it - I doubt Microsoft learned anything from this experience

That's it. As a person who has spent the past two years thinking about how large companies grow this story saddens me. How many times have we seen this story before? When will they learn?

Related Articles:

Microsoftie: We Didn't Like the Kin, Either

5 Lessons Learned from the Microsoft Kin Debacle