This is quite a surprise! According to Engadget, the KIN series of feature phones available on Verizon have been cancelled for release in Europe and the product team responsible for KIN has been merged back into the Windows Phone 7 team. Here’s Microsoft’s official statement:

“We have made the decision to focus exclusively on Windows Phone 7 and we will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned. Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases. We will continue to work with Verizon in the U.S. to sell current KIN phones.”

This comes as a bit of a surprise as I was recently contacted to help with testing and feedback for the next version of the KIN. Plus, if you look at the Facebook page with well over 200,000 fans, everybody seems to love the devices. I suppose the good news is that we might see a version of the KIN Studio integrated with Windows Phone 7 sometime in the future.