Microsoft has been sending invites to a super secretive event this Monday June 18 at 3:30pm in Los Angeles where the company plans on a ‘major’ announcement. No other details about the nature of the event have been disclosed. Not only that, even the event venue is still shrouded in mystery.

We did post a question to our Twitter followers as to what could be announced and replies included ‘buying Nokia or new Xbox’, ‘drastic changes in hotmail’, ‘new Windows tablet’. While the last reply was pure guesswork, chances are high that this could indeed be true. Reports have surfaced online that Microsoft may just be announcing the iPad Killer. Wrap.com has reported that, “an individual with knowledge of the company said that Microsoft would introduce a Microsoft-manufactured tablet at the event, marking a foray into a new hardware category that would put the company in direct competition with giant rival Apple.”

Microsoft has chosen to keep quiet on this particular topic and they haven’t responded to any replies or requests for comments. However, if this piece of information is indeed true, then we could have a new Microsoft tablet running on Windows 8 or Windows RT, the ARM based variant. A whole slew of Windows 8 tablets were announced at Computex 2012 by manufacturers and if Microsoft itself is entering this section, then it’s be going to be one interesting ride.  

So, MS wants to kill the iPad? Well, we hope they’ve taken a cue from this article that we have done in November 2011 on how to beat the iPad. The tablet war has been waging since quite a while now but Apple has still been reigning numero uno. Competition from the entire range of Android tablets hasn’t been able to topple the iPad so if Microsoft is planning to launch the iPad killer, they sure know how not to do it. If any tablet has to beat the iPad, here’s the list we had mentioned earlier:

• Price your tablet sensibly
• Focus on the feel and aesthetics
• Be unique
• Try to build an ecosystem around your device
• Offer better performance, by optimising
• Stop trying to make a computer replacement
• Bug test your products thoroughly
• Make one product, make it better 

Come Monday, all will be revealed on Microsoft’s new announcement. If a tablet is indeed announced, for sake of competition, we hope it matches up to the iPad.