Ever before considering that Gizmodo published pictures of two alleged Microsoft Pink phones (codenamed “Turtle” and “Pure,
Windows 7 Pro,”) I;ve heard repeated refrains of “That;s it?” Really? A weak Palm-Pre knock-off and a generic sliding-keyboard design?One tipster of mine said Microsoft;s intention with Pink is not to be cool and flashy. (Well, they succeeded if these photos are real. A Microsoft phone with the Zune HD touch interface would be a million times cooler.) Instead, the source said,
Office 2010 Professional, Microsoft is attempting to walk the fine line between delivering cool, co-branded Microsoft-Sharp phones and delivering something that would completely alienate Microsoft;s phone OEM partners.“Pink is a unique software stack and unique designs,” said the source, who requested anonymity. But,
Office 2007 Serial, at the same time — even though Microsoft and the Danger team the company acquired would hate this characterization — they also are really glorified Sidekicks, the source added. (Looks like this source or others with a similar story are busy spreading that word, based on a new post by News.com;s Ina Fried.)What;s more interesting about Pink than the actual hardware is the software plus services stack. This source says that is what is codenamed “Purple.” (I;d heard previously Purple was the codename for the Pink user interface, so this doesn;t seem like too far a stretch.)What;s in the Purple stack? Here;s where things get even hazier. Is Windows Mobile 7 the base upon which Pink phones will be built? From what I heard, that was Microsoft;s original plan. It;s worth repeating that the OS for Windows Mobile phones,
Windows 7 Ultimate Key, to date, has been Embedded CE at the core, with a lot of customization and layering of a Windows Mobile interface/elements on top. Will Pink phones follow in that mode or break from it? I have no idea.I asked another source of mine this week whether Windows Mobile 7 will be the foundation upon which Pink phones are built. His reply was odd: He said that being a platform was not a top-priority for Windows Mobile 7. (Make of that what you will….)What I am still hearing is that the Pink phones will feature a lot of the same kinds of premium services that future Windows Mobile phones will — everything from access to a common Windows Marketplace app store, to the Zune subscription/playback music service, to a Zune-branded video service.Microsoft officials aren;t commenting on Pink or on the recent Gizmodo images… So for now,
Windows 7, there;s no way to know how much of this is real or when any of it will materialize.Update: One reader sent me a point worth mentioning. Danger, the company Microsoft acquired in 2008 and which is believed to be the folks behind Pink at Microsoft, built a platform that was Java-based. From Danger;s Web site:” Danger has developed its own Danger Operating System that is compatible with Sun;s J2ME standard (CLDC 1.1 and MIDP 2.0).” If the Pink phones are running this platform, that proves they are Sidekicks at heart, the reader said.
