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Computerworld - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's comment last September that his company had "screwed up" with Windows Mobile had some theorizing that Microsoft's handheld team was in disarray and probably unable to take on the Apple iPhone and other devices.

Five months later, at the Mobile World Congress in February, Ballmer gave the world a glimpse at Windows Phone OS 7.0. It offered skeptics some hope that, nearly three years after the iPhone's successful launch in 2007, Microsoft was getting back in the game.

And then came yesterday's launch of two new Kin phones based on a distinct OS that Microsoft calls Windows Phone OS for Kin -- apparently a derivative of Windows Phone 7.

The Kin is clearly not a smartphone, because it doesn't allow downloading of all kinds of apps, analysts said. But it is more than a features phone with texting, because of the way it shares video, texts and other data with a circle of users in three interface capabilities called Kin Loop, Kin Spot and Kin Studio.

Slotting in between a features phone and a smartphone, the Kin is a fairly novel device, one that could reap big rewards for Microsoft and the device's exclusive U.S. carrier, Verizon Wireless, analysts said. That depends on whether the Kins are priced right and come with attractive monthly data plans when they go on sale in May, analysts said.

In fact, because of the Kins' recognition of the almost maniacal texting and social networking habits of teens and 20-somethings, Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates thinks that the Kin phones are an even bigger deal than Windows Phone 7. The mobile OS is expected to launch in various devices in the fall.

"The potential win for Microsoft is huge if it can capture even a relatively small fraction of the hundreds of millions of social network users," Gold wrote in a commentary today. "In fact, Kin could dwarf the ... tens of millions potential of its WP7 smart phone."

Gold's rationale: users attracted to Kin won't care for all the things a smartphone like the iPhone or a Google Nexus One can provide, including downloads of thousands of apps. The social networking crowd envisioned in the Kin world isn't oblivious to the value of apps, but favors its own social network above all else, Microsoft believes.

"If it catches on, Kin could usher in a new class of 'Facebook in your pocket' devices," Gold said.

The appeal to social networkers is so important that Microsoft has even engineered a special emoticon key on the lower right of the Kins' keypads. The key looks like a semicolon/close-parenthesis "smiley," which CIO blogger Al Sacco reports will open a menu with additional emoticons for using in communications instead of words.