Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the company wants to take on Apple’s iPad and says it will leave no “stone unturned” in its fight to win over customers, the Forbes magazine reported.

But it’s more than just the tablet market where Ballmer aims to defeat its rival, according to an interview he gave to CRN magazine yesterday in Toronto as Microsoft hosted its Worldwide Partner Conference.


“We are trying to make absolutely clear we are not going to leave any space uncovered to Apple,”Ballmer “shouted,” according to CRN. “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.”

Microsoft announced the Surface last month, showing off a sleek tablet built around the Windows operating system that will be released later this year. There are two versions — one running Intelprocessors and Windows 8 Pro, another with an ARM processor running Windows RT. Pricing wasn’t announced.

Ballmer told conference goers that Microsoft expects to sell “a few million” in the next year.

In his interview with CRN, Ballmer also that Microsoft made the decision to create its own tablet because it wasn’t happy with the designs and innovation it was seeing from its tablet partners.

Ballmer also said Microsoft hasn’t ruled out developing a smartphone to challenge Apple’s iPhone, though the focus for now is on the Surface. “We’ll see what happens. We have good partners with Nokia and HTC in the phone space,” he said. “Right now we are working real hard on the Surface. That’s the focus. That’s our core.”