Windows Phone 7 going to Japan by year's end

By Daniel Rubino
last updated

We already know that one of the big goals of Windows Phone in 2011 is expansion: more languages, more markets. In fact, it was stated by Andy Lees that they want 88% of the languages covered this year. Japan is obviously a huge part of that market, so it is not too shocking that Microsoft plans to launch there this year.

In an interview with one of Japan's largest papers, Sankei, Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International said "Japan is next on the list" for support. The big hurdle if implementing the Kana/Kanji writing system, something that takes some time. Adding Japan to the Windows Phone roster will help tremendously to WP7 expansion and adoption.

Meanwhile, there are some 3rd party solutions for those wishing to use Japanese now in an unofficial capacity--see 'Flickpad X2' (homebrew) and 'JPinput' (Marketplace).

Source: Sankei; via Nanapho.jp; Thanks, tezawaly

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.