Microsoft Signs Leases to Open Retail Stores in Arizona and California

[MacVixen]

I'm still confused as to what these stores will sell? Will it just be Microsoft OS and peripherals? If so that would be a waste of money since you can just go to Best Buy and buy Windows

I've wondered myself, and based on comments, it sounds like it will be more of a "lifestyle" store, where you can see how Microsoft products can be used more in your digital life. Don't know much about Vista Ultimate or any of that, but I understand that it is a media control center? So picture a little mini-living room set up with the media center running controlling various equipment.

In the end though, I am confused as to the $$. Retail space is not cheap, and it's all well and good to want to promote a lifestyle to customers, but in the end, it's SALES that pay the mall rent and I can't see the store selling enought copies of Office and Windows 7, along with XBoxes and Zunes to make them profitable. But maybe that's not the point. As others have pointed out, MS has some cash in the bank, and it's only 3 stores right now, so perhaps they are prepared to lose money on the stores themselves with the tradeoff that the Microsoft name gets more exposure.

 

[FakeWozniak]

Good Idea

It is a good idea to follow Apple's lead. You can't knock Microsoft for doing this, regardless of who thought of it first. They probably had planned on this long ago but public perception kept them from this ("just ripping Apple off again"). IMHO, that's a bad reason as everyone borrows ideas, including Apple.

I imagine Microsoft will regret waiting this long as I expect the stores to be successful/popular. The Windows 7 debut might have taken off better if the stores were everywhere and started showing the propaganda now. I agree that their help desk will be the most popular feature. I would probably visit one of their stores on the way to the Apple Store. I'll just have to dodge all the eggs being thrown at the Microsoft Store facade.

One last question, why is Microsoft doing their own stores now and not just setting up propaganda booths in long established pro-Microsoft national chain stores like Best Buy and Walmart?

 

[andy721]

omg

I swear it's one after another, copying apple again. They need to stop. They sell crappy PC's for the price you get plastic crap that last a week then what? THEN WHAT!? Been using windows 7 for months & not liking it anymore, it's a cop off vista same system kernel, they just need to redo the whole thing. It's just the same old boring crap.

 

[mobi]

Who is next to adopt Apple's business model? Didn't they patent that?

 

[miketcool]

I'm not sure about your MobileMe problems there. It works fantastic for me. If the people that are happy with it were as loud as the six people who hate it, it'd be a different story.

It is mainly my experience through the browser. Whenever I get on it at different places I have worked, or through other people's machines via Safari, Firefox, Opera, and IE, I get issues.

It won't refresh when new email arrives. It will error out on a 2nd or 3rd email I am trying to send. The page will load blank. It is slow as all get out. It logs me out randomly and it never, never NEVER pushes. I compare all of this to my experience with gmail, which has its problems too, but runs great. It is also free, which makes my paying for MobileME, ridiculously painful.

I would say all of my issues appeared last iPhone launch cycle with the 3G. remember the outages and the nightmare Apple created by too many variables on the same day. Software updates, infrastructure shift, online service swap, account creation, billing, and hyped product launch all in a 4 hour period. Nice work boys, you had a melt down, and I feel I am still dealing with the side effects.

 

[HLdan]

Yeah because Sony never had stores before Apple.

Oh yeah, and who copied who by moving from PPC to Intel to use x86 ISA?

Anyone?

There was nowhere in my post that said Apple was the first to have an innovative store. The Sony Style stores were in fact pretty in cool IMO. They had a very futuristic look. This is not the issue, Microsoft can do whatever they want but the blatent copying needs to stop. Gimme a break. A Guru Bar???

And how is Apple copying anyone by changing the CPU in their computers? They were first using the Motorola chips, then to PowerPC, now to Intel. I had no idea Windows PC's owned the rights to Intel processors.

 

[andy721]

Great, its about time. I think it will be impressive. If they were smart they would custom spec in pc's from Dell to sell in the store.

Dell PC & a clean copy of Windows 7, no bloatware.

Sorry to tell you this but this will never happen. Microsoft just wants a quick buck and think they can be creative in their own little minds and swoop people into buying useless crap.

 

[shiseiryu1]

"Answer Bar" Unnecessary

Instead of having an "Answer Bar" they can just have a big red button that you push after you ask a question. No matter what you ask the response will always be:

"Scan your system with Anti-virus/Anti-spyware, check your firewall, download any Windows Updates, reboot your system. If you still are experiencing difficulties, please contact your hardware vendor."

I think that's probably going to be their response to 95% of questions that they're going to get anyhow...might as well save a lot of time and money and just put a big red button there.

 

[noodle654]

have you heard of any office support suite? iTunes? That is your personal preference, i personally think iTunes is crap. Huge bites out of RIM? not really buying that.

You may think that iTunes is crap, your opinion, but the sales from the iTunes store and the amount of people that use iTunes puts anything that Windows has for media to shame (I mean Windows Media Player and such). The iPhone is taking bites out of RIM...where have you been the past 2 years? Apple and RIM are the largest smartphone makers in the world. iPhones market share is skyrocketing.

 

[Powerbooky]

Its going to have a few bar's like the Apple store does, however Microsofts will be:

• Virus Removal Bar
• Malware Removal Bar
• Defragmentation Bar
• Windows Customer Frustration Counceling Bar
• The "Let us call the tech support guys in India for you" Bar
• Red Ring of Death XBox 360 Repair Bar
• The "Why Windows 7 costs so much" Bar
• The Bar Bar, to get drunk at after visiting the other Bar's

Oh, and almost any Apple Store is like an internetcafé. Hundreds of people are surfing the internet, check their email and stuff on demo machines all over the store. I guess that won't be allowed in MS Stores, unless they hire the al least the double amount of staff to reinstall each PC several times a day and do hourly firewall/viruscheck updates.

The "Windows reinstallation bar" would be one of the busiest places of the store.

 

[sellitom]

Yes indeed. The anti-MS Apple fanboys are out in full force today. Quality entertainment. But please tell me, what did you own before a Mac?

 

[andy721]

Who is next to adopt Apple's business model? Didn't they patent that?

No but I'm pretty sure they'll start using that word "I have a patent for that".
Maybe Microsoft will come up with a commercial about it, everyone loves their buy a pc under 1000 bucks. Seriously what a joke.

 

[miketcool]

Great, its about time. I think it will be impressive. If they were smart they would custom spec in pc's from Dell to sell in the store.

Dell PC & a clean copy of Windows 7, no bloatware.

They should model after the Lego stores and make huge displays out of mice. I love them mice, cheap, durable and well made. It'd be sweet to have a display you could walk through with hundreds of glowing red M$ mice.

 

[andy721]

Yes indeed. The anti-MS Apple fanboys are out in full force today. Quality entertainment. But please tell me, what did you own before a Mac?

Pretty much a mac not everyone here is 75 years old.

 

[miketcool]

Yes indeed. The anti-MS Apple fanboys are out in full force today. Quality entertainment. But please tell me, what did you own before a Mac?

They just sat and stared, having prophetic visions like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. A sculpture of a molar-shaped box with a screen. This means something, this MEANS something.

 

[notjustjay]

Yes indeed. The anti-MS Apple fanboys are out in full force today. Quality entertainment. But please tell me, what did you own before a Mac?

Windows XP on a (then) top-of-the-line Dell laptop.

Your point?

Then again, I'm not an anti-MS fanboy. I still use Windows at work and I have Office on my Mac, and I have no problems with either.

 

[johncarync]

I'll come in and take a look

I'll come in just to marvel at the transparent benches but I'll try to avoid the creepy, monotone-gray sales staff.

 

[DELLsFan]

Pffft ... no stores near me.

 

[andy721]

Windows XP on a (then) top-of-the-line Dell laptop.

Your point?

Then again, I'm not an anti-MS fanboy. I still use Windows at work and I have Office on my Mac, and I have no problems with either.

Because your work only uses XP OS's you have no other choice then wake up and use it. Unless you find a different job that uses Mac OS's too.

 

[jsadwith]

I swear it's one after another, copying apple again. They need to stop. They sell crappy PC's for the price you get plastic crap that last a week then what? THEN WHAT!? Been using windows 7 for months & not liking it anymore, it's a cop off vista same system kernel, they just need to redo the whole thing. It's just the same old boring crap.

Last time I checked, Microsoft doesn't sell PC's.

 

[nkawtg72]

All those blue panels and screens on that image.... I'm just waiting for someone to Photoshop in a BSOD.

Is this a sign that Microsoft is really concerned about Apple? When you've got 95% of the market share, on a platform that pretty much locks you into buying more products from the same company, is it really necessary to spend millions of dollars on stores to promote yourself? Doesn't virtually every household already own some sort of Microsoft product? It sounds to me like they're desperate to keep themselves in the public spotlight.

you've hit the nail on the head. we get people in these forums saying us mac fanboys need to get a life that apple can't hold a stick to MS and its huge marketshare.

now we are once again presented with MS stating without a doubt that they are trying to go head to head with apple. funny how MS is saying and confirming exactly what we already know, apple has successfully been putting the screws to them.

 

[andy721]

I'll come in just to marvel at the transparent benches but I'll try to avoid the creepy, monotone-gray sales staff.

That's racist

 

[miketcool]

Pretty much a mac not everyone here is 75 years old.

I'm 24 and I had 2 Tandys, a Compaq laptop running Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and 2 Gateways. Technically, the Tandys were the only ones to really come before I got my Mac Classic and Performa, but I didn't end getting PCs until I got my iMac and OS X.

 

[PRIMECHUCK]

Surface.

It may not be aimed at the consumer ( yet ), but its making its way into businesses, and tends to go down very well.

Surface really is a good piece of technology. If Apple had made this,everyone on this forum would be raving about it - but since its made by microsoft...

Again, not an original idea. This was original made by Sun systems. I have used it already in a corporate level job and its.....ok. Not as responsive as Apples touch system.

 

[andy721]

Last time I checked, Microsoft doesn't sell PC's.

Yes they do. It's the same thing as putting a common OS into a PC from a different company brand. Think about it. It's inside a PC or it could be a mac but mostly they focus putting their product into a PC.