Lenovo announced today that it will no longer sell its 8-inch Windows tablets in the US, less than a year after introducing both the lower-end Miix 2 8 and the high-end ThinkPad Tablet 8. IT World reports that Lenovo is stopping sales because of a general lack of interest but that the ThinkPad 8 in particular will continue to be sold in international markets where it has managed to gain more traction. The company will also continue to sell 10-inch Windows tablets, which it claims are performing better, as well as its 7- and 8-inch Android tablets.

This isn't great news for Microsoft, which came to the small-screen tablet market late but has devoted considerable energy to making Windows work on those screens. When first released, Windows 8 required 1366×768 screens and didn't work well in portrait mode, making it poorly suited for smaller tablets with lower-resolution screens that were easy to hold upright. Microsoft later loosened those resolution restrictions, and Windows 8.1 tweaked the OS to work better in portrait mode. After a rocky start, high-quality small-screened Windows tablets began to hit the market in late 2013.

Lenovo is only the third largest PC manufacturer in the US (though it's number one worldwide), so its exit from the 8-inch Windows tablet market isn't as worrisome as it would be if Dell were to pack up and leave. Still, it's probably a bad sign for the other OEMs, who are all selling similar Windows tablets running similar hardware in a market dominated by the iPad Mini, the Kindle Fire, and any number of Android tablets from the likes of Samsung and Asus.

Microsoft's trouble in the small tablet market comes despite the fact that it's offering Windows for free on screens smaller than nine inches and the fact that Intel is selling many of its Bay Trail tablet chips at a loss to get the hardware into tablets in the first place. Poor performance of small-screened Windows tablets may help to explain the mysterious disappearance of the 8-inch Surface Mini, which was originally planned for launch earlier this year. The device was apparently pulled at the last minute in favor of the Surface Pro 3.

Update: Lenovo has posted a short note to its Newsroom site that contradicts this morning's report. While the ThinkPad 8 will no longer be sold in the US, the company apparently has plans to sell 8- and 10-inch Windows tablets in the US and other markets this holiday season.