That Microsoft's consumer product unit is in disarray has become evident yet again, with the company deciding to discontinue the sales of its Kin handsets - kin One and Kin Two - merely 48 days after their launch, which was backed by a big ad budget.

The reason behind Microsoft's withdrawal of the youth-specific Kin handsets - which had a controversy-ridden promotion and received somewhat lackluster reviews - is the fact that the sales of the handsets have been disappointing.

In a statement pertaining to the discontinuation of its Kin line, Microsoft said: "We have made the decision to focus exclusively on Windows Phone 7, and we will not ship Kin in Europe this fall as planned. We will continue to work with Verizon in the US to sell current Kin phones."

Meanwhile, to exhaust the remaining Kin inventory, Verizon has drastically reduced the price of Kin One and Kin Two respectively to $29.99 and $49.99, with a two-year contract.

Terming the Kin smartphones as "an absolute failure, Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin expressed his surprise over Microsoft's decision to kill the devices within such a short span of their release - more so as the company has a history of continuing with new products and improving them over time.

However, with Microsoft actually saying goodbye to the Kin handsets the Kin development team will join the company's mobile team working on the Windows Phone 7 operating system.