After software giants Apple and Google shook-up the mobile phone market with their non-traditional handset offerings, Microsoft has looked a little behind the times in not jumping on the bandwagon. Until now.

Word is out that Microsoft is set to officially launch its new line of mobile phones aimed squarely at the younger market.

Codenamed “Project Pink”, the phones are the result of Microsoft’s acquisition of Danger two years ago, which was the company behind the T-Mobile SideKick, also aimed squarely at the younger market.

The SideKick went down well in the US, but flunked on this side of the Atlantic.

The new phones are due to be announced in San Francisco on April 12, and it looks like the computing giant is launching not one, but two handsets.

Image Credit: Gizmodo

Named “Turtle” and “Pure”, the phones will come with slide out full QWERTY keyboards as well as touchscreens.

As the handsets are aimed more at your kids than you, both Turtle and Pure will be highly interactive with social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter, so that status updating can happen by the minute.

Both phones in the Pink line are rumoured to be Windows Phone 7 compatible, which is just what Microsoft needs to uphold its floundering share of the mobile software pie.

This week, research firm comScore reported that Microsoft mobile software use fell in the US from 19.1 per cent in November last year, to 15.1 per cent in February.

Handsets running Google Android however, increased from 3.8 per cent to 9 per cent.

We’ll bring you more news of Microsoft’s foray into your jeans pocket next week.