Microsoft's Frank Shaw says the new Surface tablets are a better value than Apple's new iPad Air.
Apple CEO Tim Cook used the company's press event on Tuesday to take a few shots at Apple's competition. While Cook never mentioned Microsoft by name, he clearly had Redmond in mind when he said that it was "confused" when it came to offering hardware products, saying, "They tried to make tablets into PCs and PCs into tablets."
Now it's time for Microsoft to take a few shots of its own, and unlike Cook they have no problems in naming their competitors. In a new blog post titled "Apples and oranges", Microsoft's VP of communications Frank Shaw took Apple, and unnamed members of the media, to task. He stated that the new iPad Air and the reduced price of the iPad 2 still didn't offer consumers a better value than Microsoft's Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets.
Shaw stated that the features of the Surface tablets, such as free versions of Microsoft Office, their optional keyboard accessories and their ability to run multiple apps at once on screen make the product stand out. He added:
We also knew that it would make our competitors take notice. That as consumers got a taste of devices that could really help them get things done, they would see alternatives as being more limited. And so it’s not surprising that we see other folks now talking about how much “work” you can get done on their devices. Adding watered down productivity apps. Bolting on aftermarket input devices. All in an effort to convince people that their entertainment devices are really work machines.
Shaw also said that Apple's decision to make its iWork family of software products free for new hardware purchases was not a big deal either, saying, "... when I see Apple drop the price of their struggling, lightweight productivity apps, I don’t see a shot across our bow, I see an attempt to play catch up."
Source: Microsoft | Image via Microsoft
86 Comments - Add comment