Confirmed: Microsoft's Project Pink Lives, and It's Coming to Verizon [Exclusive]

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets...erizonleak.jpgAfter the Windows Phone 7 launch passed without so much as a mention of Project Pink, Microsoft's other new phone project started to fade into memory. Today, we can confirm: Pink is coming, and Verizon's the carrier.
A tipster passed us a load of 3rd-party marketing materials, in which a promotional plan for Pink is laid out in detail. (Campaign specifics and most graphics have to be witheld to protect the innocent, but rest assured, they're legit.) The documents don't talk about specs or software details, but there's plenty we can learn:
• 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. 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, so this one's a big question mark. Is it another SDK? Or closed app development like we've seen on the Zune HD?
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Since the documents come from a party working with Microsoft, and not Microsoft itself, a few things are missing: there's no mention of a release name for the product (Pink is the codename we've been using, but the launch title could be different.); and there's no announcement or launch date. The documents are just days old, and hint at a near-term launch, which would be inline with what we've been hearing about a second Microsoft phone launch at or around CTIA at the end of this month. And remember, this are marketing materials, designed to promote a launch, not just an announcement. In other words, Pink, or whatever the hell it is, will likely beat Windows Phone 7 to market. So that explains all those Tweets, I guess. [Thanks, Tipster!]


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