At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Shenzhen-China today, Microsoft announced its new partnership program with Xiaomi, the rising star Chinese smartphone manufacturer.

When Windows 10 is released, the Mi 4 owners can choose to use Windows 10 ROM, replacing the stock Android-based MIUI on their device. In a blog post, Microsoft said:

“Through a new program with Xiaomi, one of the top smartphone distributors in the world, a select group of Xiaomi Mi 4 power users will be invited to help test Windows 10 and contribute to its future release later this year. These power users will have the opportunity to download the Windows 10 Technical Preview – installing it and providing their feedback to Microsoft.”

We have contacted Xiaomi for further information about this partnership but athe answer did not satisfy the press and technicians. Will Xiaomi sell Mi 4 phones with Windows 10 pre-installed? Will it be available on any other Xiaomi devices, such as the Mi Pad or Mi Note? Who would want to replace MIUI with Windows, anyway?

In a canned statement, Xiaomi gave the following response to our questions:

“This is an experimental program entirely led by Microsoft, working directly with select members of our Xiaomi fan community in China. Microsoft will create a custom build of Windows 10 and provide it to select Mi 4 power users who are already familiar with re-flashing their devices with custom ROMs.This is not a commercial partnership announcement and Xiaomi continues to fully embrace the Android ecosystem through our MIUI software platform.”

According to Microsoft’s announcement yesterday, Windows 10 would be launched this summer in 190 countries and 111 languages in a campaign for globalization. It also set strategic partnerships with other Chinese tech giants Lenovo, Tencent, and Qihoo 360 so that they can boost the number of people upgrading their current laptops or PCs to Windows 10.

But the cooperation with Xiaomi is probale the most interesting, as its popular MIUI operating system has been a pillar of its success from the beginning.