Microsoft will pay $200 for your used iPad - but what will they do with it?

Microsoft announced an interesting coupon today: The company will pay $200 or more for your used iPad. There’s just one catch. The $200 comes in the form of a gift card to the Microsoft store.

That’s actually a great deal, if you’re looking to move to a Surface tablet.

You can use the coupon to help buy a Surface RT, which starts at $349, or a Surface Pro, which starts at a significantly more expensive $799. Or since the coupon is good for “other cool products” at the Microsoft store, you can get all prepped for your upgrade to the powerful new Xbox One when it ships.

But the interesting part is actually not the trade-in program. That makes perfect sense: Microsoft wants to promote its own tablets, which have seen less-than-spectacular sales results. And it’s a bold business move.

The interesting part is two words in the “How to redeem this offer” instructions: “Bring in your gently used iPad 2, 3, or 4 and get a minimum of a $200 gift card to the Microsoft store.”

Those two words, which dash the hopes of thousands who were planning to pick up a broken iPad for a couple of bucks at a local flea market, indicate that Microsoft has some kind of plan for the potentially tens of thousands of iPads that it might soon find itself in possession of. A plan, clearly, beyond simply destroying them.

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