Windows 8 Gets Second Wind in Japan - Wall Street Journal

Apple Inc.'s iPad is facing more competition from many rival products powered by Google Inc.'s Android, but tablets using Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating systems haven't quite made a splash. Even so, some good news for Windows is coming out of Japan. Fujitsu Ltd. and Microsoft Japan said Wednesday that they will provide Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. with 30,000 custom-designed tablets, in what they say is the largest deployment of Windows 8 tablets in Japan to date — and one of the largest deployment orders in the world so far. From September, Meiji Yasuda's insurance sales staff across Japan will use those tablets to, for example, show videos and other multimedia content to customers, the companies said in a press release. When Microsoft launched Windows 8 in October last year, the new touch-optimized operating system was supposed to make Microsoft and PC makers more competitive in the new environment where more people are using mobile devices to perform computing tasks. Still, Windows 8 so far hasn't delivered the boost the industry had hoped for. For Windows tablets, securing corporate customers is crucial, and the latest Japanese deal is surely a step forward. The PC industry is bracing for one of the worst years in history, as sales of desktop and laptop computers plummet around the world, with tablets and smartphones satisfying more of people's computing needs. Last month, research firms Gartner and IDC said global PC shipments fell by about 11% in the second quarter – for the fifth consecutive quarter of on-year decline, the industry's longest-ever slump. According to a report released this week from IDC, Android tablets, led by Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy branded products, accounted for 63% of all the tablets shipped world-wide in the second quarter, while iPads took up 33%. Windows-based tablets, meanwhile, accounted for 4.5%, up from 1% a year earlier, when Windows 8 hadn't come out yet. "To date, Android has been far more successful than the Windows 8 platform. However, Microsoft-fueled products are starting to make notable progress into the market," said IDC researcher Ryan Reith. "The tablet market is still evolving and vendors can rise and fall quickly as a result," he said. A Microsoft spokesman wasn't immediately available to comment about Windows 8 uptake in other Asian markets. via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNG4UAhQa6yDpGM91DG12L_WmaO9jg&url=http://stream.wsj.com/story/microsofts-windows-8-and-surface-tablet/SS-2-78834/SS-2-296022/

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