So Microsoft is coming up with a sort of a new version of "Sidekick", this time with Verizon. Sharp is producing the stuff.

The device is supposed to target young crowd with SNS and texting zealot.

It caught my eyes for two reasons.

(1) "Sidekick VZ version" is a fine and dandy concept, but then why are they all BLACK? From my everyday life observation of my teenage son, the main drive of this crowd must be "teenage girls". Don't they have different colors? If I were them, I would make PEARL WHITE as the basic color, just like iPhone. As a girl (albeit older age group), I am tired of US phone industry's design sense that totally ignores female users.

(2) Japanese vendors are totally behind in global smartphone race. Japanese domestic market has been dominated by feature phones (non-smartphone) and vendors cannot afford to develop smartphones, particularly for outside of Japan, where they have very little presence. Sharp has been the only major vendor that has declared to do smartphone for international market, and there you have it. They have become "HTC for Microsoft", through their long standing relationship with Danger. It is only logical that they took this route, although I still believe that Windows Phone 7 will not become a factor in the smartphone market, and that Sharp seems to be betting to a losing horse. I am curious how it develops in the near future.

Michi