





Today in Shanghai, China we announced that with strong support of CETC and Microsoft, CMIT, our joint venture has now developed Windows 10 China Government Edition for China government customers and Lenovo will be one of the first OEM partners to preinstall Windows 10 China Government Edition; introduced the most versatile laptop—the new Surface Pro—with up to 13.5 hours of battery life; revealed the new Surface Pen, twice as accurate as the previous version with more fluid writing, drawing, and tilt; celebrated the launch of Microsoft HoloLens in China; and shared that Project Scorpio will launch in China later this year.

It is an honor and privilege today to be in China—the center place of some of the world’s most life-changing inventions like paper, the abacus, and the world’s first movable type printing press. These inventions have empowered each of us to be more creative and productive.

The Windows ecosystem is thriving around the world thanks to the many contributions from teams in China–silicon engineers, systems engineers, software developers, so many other technology partners. Every day our Chinese partners Lenovo, Xiaomi, and Huawei are building new devices and experiences that light up Windows 10 for our customers. Together, we’re inspiring a generation of creators to do more, create more, be more productive, and have more fun.

Today, we made several Windows 10, Surface, HoloLens, and Xbox announcements to empower the creator in each of us.

Windows 10 China Government Edition

For more than two decades, Microsoft has had the distinct honor to work in China, learning and advancing technology together. Over the last two years, we have earnestly cooperated with the Chinese government on the security review of Windows 10. The Chinese government has the highest standards for security. The tools they choose to use for productivity and creativity must meet the highest levels of quality.

Today on stage I was honored to welcome Ms. Beth Xu, CEO of CMIT—the joint venture between Microsoft and CETC—to share that CMIT has developed a version of Windows 10 specifically for the Chinese government and state-owned entities.

Three government customers are the first to pilot Windows 10 China Government Edition – at the national level with China Customs, at the regional level with the City of Shanghai (EITC), and the state-owned enterprise with Westone Information Technology.

The Windows 10 China Government Edition is based on Windows 10 Enterprise Edition, which already includes many of the security, identity, deployment, and manageability features governments and enterprises need. The China Government Edition will use these manageability features to remove features that are not needed by Chinese government employees like OneDrive, to manage all telemetry and updates, and to enable the government to use its own encryption algorithms within its computer systems.

We also announced that Lenovo will be one of the first OEM partners to preinstall Windows 10 China Government Edition on new devices.

It’s an honor to have this partnership with the China government, CETC, CMIT, and Lenovo.

Windows 10 is the most secure version of Windows ever, and we’re humbled that governments around the world like the U.S. Department of Defense, the Australian Health Department, and the Italian Ministry of Defense are choosing Windows 10 for their security, and now the Chinese government has a version of Windows created specifically for it. We are committed to work tirelessly to meet their needs.

Introducing the new Surface Pro—the most versatile laptop

Surface has always been about empowering people to be more creative, collaborative, and productive. We were inspired to create the 2:1 category with Surface Pro 3, to redefine the ultimate laptop with Surface Book, to transform the desktop into a digital canvass with the Surface Studio, and to deliver the perfect balance of portability, performance, and elegance with Surface Laptop.

Today, we unveiled the next generation of the iconic Surface Pro line. The new Surface Pro delivers up to 13.5 hours of battery life—50% more battery life than the Surface Pro 4 and 35% more than an iPad Pro. It’s more than 2.5 times faster than Surface Pro 3.

Surface Pro is not only a powerhouse laptop but also a mobile creative studio with a vibrant 12.3” PixelSense touch display that supports the Surface Dial and the new Surface Pen – the fastest pen ever. Twice as accurate as the previous version, the new Surface Pen when coupled with the new Surface Pro, sets the industry standard for faster, more fluid writing and drawing.

We are making the creative power of the new Surface Pen available in the world’s most powerful productivity suite: Microsoft Office. Today, we showed off new inking features in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that include a customizable gallery of your favorite pens, pencils, and highlighters that roams with you as a personalized setting across Office apps and devices, along with support for tilt and shading with the new Surface Pen.

These capabilities will begin to release to Office 365 subscribers in June, including the more than 100 million monthly active commercial users and 26 million consumer subscribers. Additional inking experiences will continue to roll out in the future, including the new Microsoft Whiteboard app, which offers a limitless canvas for creativity and collaboration with simultaneous inking between multiple people across the world. With Microsoft Whiteboard, people will be able to collaborate on ideas and projects across an expanded set of ink-enabled Windows 10 devices later this year, with exclusive capabilities for Office 365 subscribers.

Starting at $799 USD, the new Surface Pro allows people to customize their experience with an array of color-on-color options for the new Surface Pro Signature Type Cover, the new Surface Pen, and the Microsoft Surface Arc Mouse.

The new Surface Pro will launch on June 15, 2017, in 24 markets. Pre-orders for the new Surface Pro and Surface Pro Signature Type Cover begins later today in select markets at Microsoft Store, Microsoft.com, BestBuy.com, and JD.com where available. The new Surface Pen will be available in the coming weeks.

Surface Studio is coming to 12 new markets. Preorders for Surface Studio and Surface Laptop begin today in China and start shipping on June 15. To celebrate the launch of Surface in China, one of our important consumer partners, JD.com, will run a Microsoft Super Surface Day on their website and mobile app on May 24 in China. JD.com and Microsoft Surface will also be featured in New York’s iconic Times Square.

HoloLens launches in China today

At Microsoft, we want to empower creators to break down the barriers between physical and virtual worlds. That’s why we built Windows 10 to be the most complete platform across the broadest range of mixed reality devices and experiences.

In December at WinHec in Shenzen, China we announced that HoloLens—the world’s first untethered holographic computer with endless possibilities to unleash people’s creativity—was submitted for government approval in China.

Today, I had the pleasure of announcing that HoloLens is now shipping to developers in China.

Since 2016, over 22,000 developers have imagined over 70,000 transformative concepts on Hololens, leading to over five million hours where people were immersed in holographic experiences. On behalf of the Windows Mixed Reality team at Microsoft, I want to welcome China developers to the family. I can’t wait to see the wave of new creativity you will unleash.

Project Scorpio coming to China later this year

We were honored to be the first company to bring a next-generation game console to China in 2014 with the launch of Xbox One. Today we announced that Project Scorpio, the most powerful console ever, will be available this year for Xbox fans in China.

Games perform better on Project Scorpio. With 40 percent more power than any other console and True 4K gaming, we can’t wait for fans in China to get their hands on it later this year.

I’m also excited to announce that we’re bringing the next season of the Forza Racing Championship, the most inclusive racing competition in gaming, to ChinaJoy in Shanghai this summer. Forza is the highest acclaimed, best-selling racing franchise of this generation, and has been a fan favorite since launching in China.

And finally, I’m happy to share that NetEase—our partner bringing Minecraft to China—will offer two more betas in July on the way to a beautiful Windows 10 and Xbox One experience.

With Windows 10, Surface, HoloLens, and gaming we want to inspire a new generation of creativity everywhere in the world. I can’t wait to see what you will create next.

Thanks,

-Terry