Microsoft believes that the retail business in China is potential, and has decided to strive to develop this market, which has the brightest future among Asian nations. Jason Demeny, manager of Mobile and Embedded Products Department of Microsoft claimed on his promotion travel of Windows Embedded for Point of Service (WEPOS) in Shanghai.

He said WEPOS is a terminal software platform of POS, aimed at an application filed as POS system, consultation service, auto service and detection system, and gas station.

For embedded products, Microsoft presents three operating systems, namely Win CE, Windows XP Embedded, and WEPOS, among which WEPOS is the key product mainly based on the enterprising POS industry.

IHL estimates that the annual expenditure on IT in retail and serving sector amounts to billions of US dollars, the POS application scale is expected to broaden, and its supply in China will be likely to exceed that in Japan.

He added that Microsoft has already played an important role in product supply in retail business, and that they will further expand its investment in the field. The increased investment will mainly be used to develop WEPOS and apply for 400 employees, who will focus on retail and service industry.

(People's Daily July 12, 2006)