Fujitsu and Microsoft Japan to Equip Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance's 30,000 Advisors with Windows 8 Tablets in One of World's Largest Ever Deployments

Tokyo, August 07, 2013

Fujitsu Limited and Microsoft Japan Co., Ltd. are providing Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Company with approximately 30,000 custom-designed Windows 8 tablets as new original sales terminals for its advisors (sales personnel). This is the largest deployment of Windows 8 tablets in Japan to date, and one of the largest in the world⁽¹⁾.

Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance will start to conduct sales activities using the new tablets in approximately 1,200 locations nationwide from September 2013 onwards.Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance is thoroughly reviewing its business services based on customer feedback so as to realize greater customer satisfaction, and is making efforts to offer direct to customers easy-to-understand explanations of information that they will find valuable.

Fujitsu and Microsoft Japan are giving their full support to this initiative. In addition to meshing the knowledge and expertise it has accumulated during 20 years of involvement in tablet PC development with the latest technologies for building thinner and lighter devices, Fujitsu has selected Microsoft's Windows 8 Pro enterprise operating system to develop an ideal Windows 8 tablet. In so doing, customer convenience has been improved with an entire range of digitized procedures and customers are provided with beneficial information in an easily understandable format. With this development, Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance will be the first Japanese life insurance company to adopt Windows 8 Pro.

Leveraging the advantages offered by tablets, Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance will use videos and other content to explain its products and enhance communication with its customers. It will also endeavor to focus more resources on even better service and competitiveness by streamlining contract processing and eliminating the need for printed documentation while ensuring tight security.

Features of the new sales terminal

1. Thin, lightweight Windows 8 tablet
   The new custom-designed tablet PC is equipped with a large, wide 12.1 inch LCD for easy viewing and a battery with enough power to last a full day of sales activities, but is still only 15 mm thick and weighs approximately 880 g.
2. Smooth touch operation and stylus-based data input
   The touch panel is the first in Japan's life insurance industry to support both surface capacitive touch and projected capacitive touch, enabling handwritten input and precision manipulation using the dedicated stylus that comes with the product as well as smooth finger-based touch operation. It also supports Windows 8's multitouch⁽²⁾ operation, and includes a function for allowing handwritten input while resting the hand on the screen, thus enabling customers to sign documents electronically in a more natural way.
3. High-speed mobile communications functions that enable prompt service irrespective of location
   The device is equipped with a wireless WAN⁽³⁾ module that supports NTT DOCOMO's high-speed LTE mobile communications service "Xi", enabling fast downloading of product pamphlets, videos and other content. In combination with Windows 8's short boot time, this will help to enable smoother communication with customers.
4. Powerful protection of customer data
   Robust security is achieved through encryption of the terminal's internal solid-state disk (SSD) drive and System Center-based centralized management of customer data that eliminates the need to store customer data within the tablet. Sales personnel will accordingly be able to travel with their tablet confident in the knowledge that the critical personal data of their customers is safely protected.

Going forward, Fujitsu and Microsoft Japan will continue to propose ways to utilize the latest ICT in order to support Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance's efforts to provide the kind of services that win the hearts of its customers.