In a bid to entice more consumers to buy its Surface tablet, Microsoft Corp is dangling a new carrot.
The company on Thursday e-mailed and listed on its Web site a promotion that includes giving credit worth a minimum US$200 to customers who turn in “gently used” Apple Inc iPads to its stores. The gift card is for Microsoft stores, and the company suggests upgrading to a Surface.
The promotion is good through Oct. 27 on the iPad 2, 3 and 4 models, Microsoft said.
Rich Adolph, a spokesman for Microsoft, said the intent of the initiative was not necessarily a competitive one and was instead related to a recycling program.
“This is part of a current recycle-for-rewards program,” he said.
Microsoft sold US$853 million of Surface tablets in the fiscal year ended June 30, and took a US$900 million writedown of inventory related to the product.
The device, Microsoft’s first-ever computer hardware, is a mobile touch-screen computer introduced in October last year to compete with the iPad and tablets running Google Inc’s Android operating system.
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