Microsoft Project Pink Lives And Heads To Verizon

Rumors have been floating on the Internet for quite some time regarding Microsoft’s not-so-secret Project Pink. Initially, reports mentioned the devices from Project Pink as being aimed toward the younger, Sidekick crowd which left the impression that the handsets were going to be of the feature phone variety. Today, Gizmodo has confirmed the legitimacy of Project Pink and it looks like the first device, the Turtle, is headed to Verizon Wireless. This isn’t your average image leak coupled with shaky rumors: Gizmodo really got the details. See below.

• The early Pink renders leaked to us back in September? Those are exactly the same ones included in the proposal.
• Of the two phones in prior leaks, only one shows up here: The Turtle vertical slider. It’s a messaging phone, basically—one part Pre, and two parts Sidekick. (Or maybe three.)
• Verizon is a launch partner for the device, and probably an exclusive carrier. The branding and marketing in the documents suggests a joint Microsoft/Verizon launch, but another carrier isn’t completely out of the question.
• The phones aren’t running Windows Phone 7, unless it’s hidden behind a different interface. Virtually all rumors around the Pink platform implied as much, and again, this appears to be something fundamentally different.
• Social Networking! It’s all over the proposal, and presumably, the phone.
• It’s suggested that the platform has apps of some sort. For a phone like this to share apps with Windows Phone 7 is pretty much impossible—the minimum hardware requirement for a Windows Phone look out of reach for this little pebble—so this one’s a big question mark. Is it another SDK? Or closed app development like we’ve seen on the Zune HD? Web apps?

Since Project Pink was pegged as some kind of successor to the Sidekick series, it’s a bit of a shock that the device is coming to Verizon. What makes this all a bit more bland is that the handset seems to be just a feature phone, possibly with support for apps. There is no set launch date, but the marketing materials that Gizmodo received were very recent, which could indicate a launch or at least an ad campaign in the very near future.