Interesting news, the first instance of the Windows Azure Appliance will be launched and available to customers in Japan with August 2011. Here is a quick excerpt, full article here:
“Fujitsu Ltd. and Microsoft Corp. today announced that the first release of its Global Cloud Platform service powered by Windows Azure, running in Fujitsu's datacenter in Japan, will be launched in August 2011. The launch of this service is the result of the global strategic partnership between Fujitsu and Microsoft announced in July 2010.
The partnership allows Fujitsu to work alongside Microsoft providing services to enable, deliver and manage solutions built on Windows Azure. As of April 21, 2011, Fujitsu has been offering the service in Japan on a trial basis to 20 companies. This launch marks the first official production release of the Windows Azure platform appliance by Fujitsu. By using FGCP/A5, customers will be able to quickly build elastically scalable applications using familiar Windows Azure platform technologies, streamline their information communications technology (ICT) operations management to accelerate business expansion, and enhance their competitive edge in the global market.“