John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

Microsoft and Verizon: Pretty in Pink

pretty-in-pink-revised

Looks like Microsoft’s long-rumored “Pink” phone project is about to make the jump from speculation to reality. Gizmodo has managed to get its hands on some marketing materials that appear to confirm Pink’s existence and finger Verizon (VZ) as a launch partner.

Evidently, there are to be two Pink phones–one with a horizontal slider, the other with a vertical one (click on image below to enlarge)–both manufactured by Sharp. Neither, it seems, will run Windows Phone 7, though Gizmodo suggests that whatever the phones do run might share some aesthetic elements with the operating system.

“It’s suggested that the (Pink) platform has apps of some sort,” writes Gizmodo’s John Herrman. “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 black lump–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?”

Interesting questions. Perhaps, Pink is Microsoft’s (MSFT) way of getting into the feature phone business without alienating its Windows Phone 7 hardware partners. According to Gizmodo, we may find out as soon as April when the devices are expected to arrive at market.

[Pink Phone Image credit: Gizmodo]

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