The Microsoft Band may have just met its demise.
Microsoft’s online store has officially stopped selling the Band 2 which was positioned as a competitor to the Apple Watch. The company also revealed today that it will not release a new Microsoft Band 3 this year.
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“We have sold through our existing Band 2 inventory and have no plans to release another Band device this year,” a Microsoft spokesperson told ZDNet.
Microsoft insists that despite removing all mention of the Band 2 from its online store, it is still committed to supporting Band 2 customers. It also pulled the Band 2 software development kit though, so new third-party apps will be scarce.
In an effort to boost sales of the Band 2, Microsoft offered a free Band 2 to customers that traded in an Apple Watch. Obviously that promotion didn’t do so well and now that the Apple Watch Series 2 is out the Band 2 looks even more stale.
A team of software engineers were reportedly working on bringing Windows 10 to the Band. That team was disbanded a few months ago. According to ZDNet’s report, most of the hardware team behind Band has also been dispersed to other hardware teams in the company.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
6 responses to “Microsoft just killed its Apple Watch competitor”
“The Microsoft Band 2 never caught on.”
Everything Microsoft tries to “kill” the competition with either pales, or outright fails. The Band, The Band 2, The Surface, The Surface 2 (and Pro), the iPod “killer” Zune, even Windows itself are all poor imitations of Apple products. Does this opinion make me an Apple “sheeple”, “fanboy” or “zombie.” Nope, just guy who appreciates well-designed products and services. And yes, therefore, an Apple fan.
Not everything – Windows, XBox, Surface Pro 3/4, Office, among others, have been very successful. I won’t argue the MS has it’s pitfall projects, but it’s not everything.
I think the Band was a neat product and a neat idea, but it needed tighter integration with Windows (and the ability to be phone-free). Between that and a slightly bigger display and a cheaper price, it might have done better. From a Marketing perspective, MS didn’t find a good distinction for it.
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The problem with MS is they don’t offer a cleaner and simpler product offering, name, and certainly don’t put the product out long enough to get traction. MS Smartphones were my second OS after Palm OS, then BlackBerry, then Android, then iOS & Android now just iOS. Yet I found Windows Phone OS to be a solid offering, but not enough product offering, options and crippled products due to carrier involvement.
The biggest issue in the USA is Verizon & AT&T having stranglehold control on what the phones have, do, look and feel like. If I could get an unlocked phone and use it the way I want I would be happier as they are in the EU, but in the US that will never happen.
It used to be like that in the EU as well – thankfully they introduced an EU-wide law requiring carriers to unlock phones on customer’s demand etc. so carriers simply stopped doing it altogether since most customers did this and it no longer made sense for them.
As for MS – I think what ‘killed’ Windows Phone was the lack of apps, and MS’s stupid decision to leave all WP7 users behind when they released WP8 and now they did almost the same leaving 50% of WP8 behind while releasing W10.
Lack of clear, coherent strategy and sticking to their ideas – that’s the problem. Just look at Windows 8… first they enforced the new UI – it was tough but when it finally started to take off, they killed it and reversed back to ‘desktop focus’.
This is why Apple leads – consistency.
How is a fitness band Apple Watch competition ? If anything, MS Band competed with the like of Fitbit, not Apple Watch.