Microsoft's CEO takes a shot at Tim Cook over the iPad Pro's similarities to the Surface (MSFT, AAPL)
REUTERS/Baz Ratner
Back in 2012, when Microsoft first announced its first-ever Surface, a Wall Street analyst asked Apple CEO Tim Cook if the Cupertino company would ever follow suit with a laptop/tablet hybrid of its own.
“You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but you know those things are not going to be probably be pleasing to the user," Cook famously replied.
Fast forward to today, and Apple is selling no fewer than two versions of the iPad Pro, a tablet that looks a lot like a Microsoft Surface. Apple is even billing it as a suitable replacement for a Windows laptop.
The irony hasn't escaped Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
"Three years ago, the two-in-one as a form factor was questioned. Does anybody need one? And now guess what, even our competition has decided that it's not a refrigerator and a toaster but it's actually a two-in-one," Nadella quipped this week to the Australian Financial Times.
Microsoft has actually been having a lot of fun at Apple's expense over the whole affair: This last summer, Microsoft ran TV commercials slamming Apple's claim that an iPad Pro was as capable a laptop replacement as a Surface Pro 4 tablet.
REUTERS/Baz Ratner
In that same interview, Nadella indicated once more that Microsoft is all but out of the smartphone business, choosing instead to focus on apps and tools like Microsoft Office and its Enterprise Mobility Management, which work across iPhone and Android as well as Macs and PCs.
"We will continue to be in the phone market not as defined by today's market leaders, but by what it is that we can uniquely do in what is the most ultimate mobile device," Nadella told the Australian Financial Times.
Microsoft will soon be releasing the new Surface Studio, which has been generating a ton of buzz for its unique hybridization of the tablet and the PC. It raises the question: Will Apple follow Microsoft's lead once again? Or is the iPad Pro Apple's only refrigerator-toaster hybrid?
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