April 12: Microsoft Pink finally to make its debut

None of us knows for sure (yet), but it's looking like next Monday, April 12, could will be the debut of the long-awaited Microsoft Pink phones.

Microsoft has sent out invitations to members of the press for a mystery event on that date in San Francisco. Speculation is growing that this will be the Pink launch.

Update (April 6): Looks like those infamous "people familiar with the matter" are confirming for certain folks that Monday's event in San Francisco will, indeed, be the launch of the first Pink phones, which will be available on Verizon and Vodaphone.

Pink is the codename for the successor to the Sidekick and the services for those devices. The target audience for Pink is the teen/twenty-something market. There are a number of Pink device codenames floating around, including Pure, Turtle, Lion and Pride. Pure and Turtle are believed to be manufactured by Sharp, but are expected to be branded as Microsoft phones.

April 12 also is the launch date for Visual Studio 2010, but in Las Vegas, not San Francisco. (I thought it was San Francisco, but I stand corrected.) I've seen some speculation that Microsoft also may release to manufacturing its Office 2010 product on or around April 12. I've also seen speculation that April 12 could be the date Microsoft launches the 64 GB Zune HD. (Microsoft is pushing out its promised Zune 4.5 firmware update today, April 5, by the way.)

Microsoft isn't commenting on any of these claims or rumors. Officials are saying Microsoft "is not providing any more details at this point."

I'm feeling anti-climactic about Pink, given the years of speculation leading up to the launch. (My first Pink-related post was back in December 2007.) I still am interested in hearing Microsoft officials explain -- if Pink phones are, as expected, branded as Microsoft phones -- how/why what Microsoft is doing is different from what Google did with the Google phone. As some may recall, Microsoft execs claimed Google was hurting its partners by delivering a Google-branded phone....