Japan’s Mouse Computer enter into an agreement to develop Windows Phones

Japan is not one of Microsoft’s strongest Windows Phone markets, in fact its market share is often less than 1% in the 127 million strong country.

It seems Microsoft is planning to do something about it, and has recruited Japanese PC OEM Mouse Computers, who has a large market share in the region, into developing Windows Phones.

In a press release the company announced the agreement, saying:

Mouse Computer, Windows Phone-based signed a device development agreement, notice of development started

Ltd. Mouse Computer (President: Komatsu Amon, Headquarters: Tokyo, hereinafter referred to as “Mouse Computer”) is entered into a Windows Phone-based device development contract, that you have embarked on the development of Windows Phone-based devices I will inform you.

In our, Microsoft’s one of the has been strongly support the commitment to support a wide range of devices in Windows, traditional desktop PC, in addition to laptops, workstations, tablet PCs, etc., we have expanded our product category. New, by the lineup as a latest ubiquitous terminal products based on Windows Phone that you are expected to expand further demand in the future, anytime, anywhere, viewing of video and music content on the net, web browsing, office or software is implemented by on the same OS platform, I will continue to expand the demand.

In addition, we plan to LTE corresponding SIM-free at the moment. With regard to detailed product configuration and sales period, will be announced at a later date again.

As the machine-translated press release alludes to, the device is in the early stage of development, so no specs is available yet, and the image above is preliminary.  The handset will however be LTE and will be sold unlocked.

The last Japanese OEM to produce a windows phone was the Toshiba IS12T Windows Phone in August 2011, which had 32 GB of storage at launch and was water proof, a feature which we have not seen replicated yet.