“Apple wasn’t the only speaking at Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, and Microsoft’s CFO Peter Klein tried to garner some attention by saying that Microsoft is ready, willing and able to launch a device similar to Apple’s iPad mini,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple. “But the talk ended there and melted into a fog of when they’d actually launch it.”

Purcher writes, “Back in 2012, CRN had [Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer on record as saying that they’re ‘not going to let any piece of this go uncontested to Apple,’ shouted Ballmer. ‘Not the consumer cloud. Not hardware software innovation. We are not leaving any of that to Apple by itself. Not going to happen. Not on our watch.’”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Big Dummy BallmerThis is yet another excellent, original idea from Mr. Baller & Co.

If Microsoft isn’t hard at work transforming their Surface duds into mini flops and flushing even more R&D money down the toilet, they should be.

Don’t forget the kickstands and keyboards, dummies!

As always, we like their strategy. We like it a lot.