Microsoft Corp.'s Japan unit has picked a former Hewlett-Packard Japan Ltd. executive as its new chief operating officer (COO), the company said Monday.

Yasuyuki Higuchi assumed his new position March 1. He was previously president of Japanese retailer Daiei Inc. and served as HP Japan's president. At Microsoft he will be in charge of the company's commercial and enterprise business.

"I'm very excited," he said at a Tokyo news conference. "[Commercial] is the area I was heavily involved in at HP Japan ... so the area is one I am really familiar with."

Higuchi was an employee of Compaq and came to HP when the two companies merged in 2002. Prior to Compaq he worked at Apple Inc.'s Japan unit between 1994 and 1997.

As COO he will report to Darren Huston, president and CEO of Microsoft's Japan unit, Microsoft Co. Ltd. With Higuchi heading up the enterprise business, Huston will concentrate on the consumer sector, he said.

"I hope to bring together our assets in a more consistent way," said Huston in an interview with IDG News Service. "We have a very strong portal on the Internet, MSN, we're launching a bunch of Live services, we've got some great products being launched in games for Windows [and] we've launched Vista in its premium version. So it's how do we bring those assets together and make more of an impact."

Last week the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business newspaper reported that Higuchi is likely to take over from Huston as Microsoft's Japan president in about a year. Huston addressed the report on Monday and said that he would be here for at least the next financial year but didn't commit to being in Japan beyond that point.