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Lenovo dings Microsoft Surface: We'll provide better hardware

Lenovo executives believe it can beat Microsoft on hardware and claims not to be worried about Microsoft's Surface tablet.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
Brooke Crothers
Lenovo Windows 8 ThinkPad Tablet 2.
Lenovo Windows 8 ThinkPad Tablet 2. Scott Stein/CNET

During Lenovo's first fiscal quarter 2013 earnings call, executives didn't mince words in attacking Microsoft's Surface strategy.

"Although we don't like Microsoft providing hardware, for us, it just adds one more competitor," Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing said during the conference call in response to analyst's question.

"[They're] just one of our many competitors. We are still confident that we are providing much better hardware than our competitors including Microsoft," he said.

Yuanqing continued. "They are strong in software, but [we] don't believe they can provide the best hardware in the world. Lenovo can."

He tried to temper the criticism by offering the obligatory comments about the partnership with Microsoft.

"To be frank, we're not that worried about [Surface]. Microsoft is still our strategy partner. We are very optimistic on the Windows 8 launch so we will fully leverage that to launch our new products," he said.

The Microsoft Surface tablet marks the first time Microsoft has launched a branded PC product.

Watch this: Microsoft's Surface tablet