The Kinect has been a phenomenal success for Microsoft, 8 million sold milestone after only 60 days on the market. Now, to compliment the release of the Kinect for Windows SDK, they’ve launched a commercial program with companies such as Toyota, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Razorfish.
“Keen on encouraging the fast-growing wealth of non-gaming applications that have sprung up for Kinect, Microsoft released an academic and enthusiast software development kit for non-commercial projects in June and promised to develop a similar kit for commercial uses. To that end, today Microsoft announced that the Kinect for Windows commercial program will launch early next year, giving global businesses the tools they need to develop applications on Kinect that could take their businesses and industries in new directions,” says Microsoft. “Thus, the genesis of the so-called ‘Kinect Effect’ – a term coined in the hallways and conference rooms of Microsoft to describe the device’s increasingly widespread appeal and diversity of uses.”
Source: Microsoft.com