How Microsoft Kin Helped Bankrupt Sharp Electronics :: Generative Storytelling
How Microsoft Kin Helped Bankrupt Sharp Electronics
2026-07-06Devlin
#Microsoft
#Band
#history
#Microsoft Kin
How Microsoft Kin Helped Bankrupt Sharp Electronics#
Preface: Everything in this story is hearsay, told to me by someone who was directly involved in the events but who sometimes embellished around the edges. Also there were many contributing factors to the downfall of Sharp Electronics, however the events that transpired sure didn’t help things along.
Sins Of The Father#
Microsoft Band 2 needed a curved screen. Circa 2014 only 2 companies made curved screens, Samsung, and Sharp. Samsung, who at the time had a competing product to Band, offered to sell us a 1.3 in screen for only $35 per unit. I asked the guy in charge of sourcing what options we had. “Well, we called up Sharp, but they literally won’t pick up the phone for us anymore. That is our fault.”
Wait, what? Why won’t Sharp do business with Microsoft, one of the world’s largest companies, anymore?
So, he told me the story.
Promises for Kin#
Microsoft was making a Kin phone. Lots has been written about the Kin already, so I won’t go into it. What I did learn is that Microsoft contracted with Sharp to make the screen, and apparently convinced Sharp to setup a large new production line to make a lot of screens for Kin. Famously the Kin phone was cancelled in less than 2 months, with less than ten thousand units sold.
Sharp was left with a production line for a bespoke screen that no one else wanted. It was, apparently, a not insignificant contributing factor to their financial troubles which happened soon after.
And What About Band?#
We ended up paying Samsung $35 per screen, or something thereabouts. I may be misremembering the exact number, but the screen price basically doomed us to never being profitable. Other devices competing with Band 2 cost less than $35 in total to manufacture.
Lessons Learned?#
Even in the corporate world, at the highest levels, karma exists and mistreating others can hurt even the largest of companies.
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