Substantiating The Wall Street Journal’s last-month report that Microsoft, like Google, is all set to mark its direct foray into the mobile handset market in spring; unnamed sources ‘in the know’ have revealed that Microsoft will launch its two ‘Pink’ phones, made by Sharp, in May or June. The Microsoft phones will be sold by the leading US mobile operator – Verizon Wireless.

The sources, on the condition of anonymity, further revealed that the forthcoming Microsoft phones – being developed under the code name Project Pink - will be aimed at teenagers as well as other users who ‘heavily’ use social networking sites.

Along with the launch of the new Microsoft-brand handsets, which will reportedly include keyboards for text messages and boast easy accessibility to social-networking sites, Microsoft will also continue with its ongoing interaction with handset makers of Windows phones, and with the mobile carriers the phones will be sold on.

Noting that Microsoft’s spending will likely be directed more towards marketing its upcoming mobile Windows Phone 7 series software than the ‘Pink’ phones, analyst Matt Rosoff, at Kirkland, Washington-based Directions on Microsoft, said: “This is a legacy of Microsoft being a big decentralized company doing a lot of things and seeing what wins.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft has persistently been denying the buzz about Project Pink, reiterating that it sells only the Sharp-manufactured Sidekick phone, resulting from its acquisition of start-up Danger Inc.