Apple CEO Tim Cook may have had some choice words about the Microsoft Surface tablet during a call with investors last week, slamming the iPad rival as "compromised and confusing."
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer isn't about to respond in kind -- though he did suggest Cook had strayed from his intended message when he made those remarks.
"Any competitive guy is going to step in and talk about that kind of stuff occasionally, even if they're taught to be disciplined and on-message," Ballmer told Mashable in an interview Monday. "They're the incumbent in what people call the tablet market. I think tablets and PCs are converging.
"We'll give them a run for their money," Ballmer vowed. "I'm glad he's paying attention."
Ballmer spoke to Mashable after Monday's launch of Windows Phone 8 in San Francisco, capping a week of launches tied to Microsoft's new operating system. He described Windows 8 as one of three major moments in Microsoft history where the company gets to reinvent itself -- the other two being the arrival of the IBM PC and the launch of Windows 95.
The Microsoft CEO wouldn't commit to whether the company would make more hardware along the lines of the Surface -- such as a Microsoft phone. But he did say that "the lion's share" of devices running Windows 8 would come from companies other than Microsoft.
"But there will be times when we think from an innovation perspective, a customer value perspective, it seems like we ought to step in," Ballmer added. "That's where we think Surface fits."