Be here now? Is it possible the MSFT Marcom team wasn't aware of the book by Ram Dass?

Ok, where do I start? I certainly am experiencing a certain schadenfreude over the lastest misfire over at the Microsoft camp in Redmond…And not because I wish those hard working teams ill fortune. Simply because the failure of their management team enforced oft tried and true methodology of replicating a successful product with profit as the main goal was so obvious out of the gate, that no amount of smoke and mirrors would help them achieve success.

For context, here is quote from a recent PC World review:

The problem is that under that pretty, toned exterior lies a couch potato of an operating system, one that seems unwilling and perhaps unable to hoist itself off the couch. It’s not so much lipstick on a pig as it is lipstick on a sloth.

Watching Steve Ballmer introduce this device was painful to say the least… The usually pomp and attempt to instill a sense of sincerity, the faux vision, Steve even opens with the same line his nemesis did, in saying “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time…” ha!

Let me simply list a few items in the growing list of, as PC World calls them, “misses”.

1. The name.

“Windows Phone”? Don’t go racking your brains guys…You can almost hear the middle managers in the launch team groan…Why would you change the name from a successful brand? Oh, because you abandoned the core dependability of the Windows Mobile OS.

2. The feature set.

Apart from some reports from a few folks that the basic UI is clean and intuitive, there isn’t any innovation here…In fact, the phone goes back in time. No cut, copy or paste, no VPN, oh and no real app store. Oy vey…

3. Uverse TV? Ralph de la Vega? Breakthrough experience? – Moving on…

4. The slogan.

“Be here now.” – This is weird, in that Ram Dass, the author of the American cultural touchstone document from the 1960′s, “Be Here Now” and Timothy Leary’s partner at Harvard for the infamous LSD experiments is also my cousin. Using this slogan for a sub-par copy-cat Microsoft product is a personal attack on my family.

5. Tiles.

This is the purported pinnacle of innovation on the WinPho device…Wow.

Ok, I’ve said all I need to say…But seriously, this is an also ran…What’s the old adage about Microsoft; they usually get it right the third time? So we should see a device that catches up w/the present market feature/price point in Q4 of 2013.

And what’s this? A report that the remaining Microsoft Kin inventory will be pushed out onto the hapless channel for the remainder of Q4? Geeze guys…Really?