Over the weekend Patently Apple posted a report titled "Microsoft and Google are shifting strategies to challenge the iPad's Market Dominance from Features to Platforms." In-part the report covered the coming Microsoft Windows 10 on Qualcomm 2-in-1's launching shortly in an effort to attract students for a back to school effort to make the Surface tablet closer to the iPad by using an always-on ARM Snapdragon processor. Being that Qualcomm is behind this initiative, I'm sure that Apple is already working on a next-gen iPad Pro that will maintain their market lead.

Beyond the Pro tablet market, it's being reported today that Microsoft is now preparing to go all-out and launch cheaper tablets sometime in the second half of the year in an effort to finally crack the top tablet vendors worldwide which they've failed to do thus far, six long years after entering the market to challenge the iPad.

Last Quarter Apple shipped 9.1 million tablets to be number one. Amazon was in fifth spot selling 1.1 millions. Where the hell was the Surface tablet? Obviously below a million units and embarrassingly behind the cheap Amazon tablets. Ouch!

Apple's 10.5" iPad Pro with 64GB currently sells at $649 with a Smart Keyboard cover and Microsoft will reportedly introduce a 10" Surface tablet at $400 for 64GB without a keyboard cover and likely $549 with it. If it's this fall that it launches, Apple could bring down the price a few dollars and does anyone really think being within $50 of an iPad Pro that the world will finally see the error or their ways and switch to the Surface tablet?

While the new Windows 10 + Qualcomm initiative may have some potential this year, today's news of a Microsoft tablet refresh is a Bloomberg borefest of a rumor.

If Microsoft is trying to crawl out of the grave this fall and finally get on IDC's tablet charts for the first time in its history, surely Microsoft must have much more up its sleeve to shake up the market.

If not, we'll just keep laughing at Microsoft's Surface team who can't get any traction with their hardware against Apple's line-up no matter how excited Microsoft's Panos Panay gets or that he wears that Moses himself makes their tablets on Mount Sinai. Zzzzz.

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