“Microsoft Corp. is on the prowl for a store in Times Square. The move would be the software giant’s first big stab at retail and may be an attempt to play catch-up with archrival Apple, which has hit a home run with its own branded stores, including its New York City flagship in SoHo,” Louise Kramer reports for The New York Post. “Microsoft is looking for a large space to create a ‘branding experience’ a la Apple’s showroom and information center.”
Kramer writes, “Apple took what was viewed as a big risk by branching into retail, but the venture has been such a success that the company has opened 110 stores while Microsoft has continued selling through other retailers. Microsoft did attempt a small-scale retail store, called MicrosoftSF, in San Francisco. It opened in 1999 and closed three years later. In recent weeks, Microsoft officials have been in touch with New York real estate brokers who have worked on transactions in Times Square. A company spokesman declined to comment.”
Full article, which was surrounded by Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard Widget ads during our visit, here.
MacDailyNews Take: First install of “Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware is FREE* to all Microsoft Dunce Bar™ visitors**! Only the Microsoft Retail Store offers the patented Lost & Missing DLL Service™! First 1,000 visitors eligible to purchase Grand Opening T-Shirts.*** Every day features our Proprietary Format Workshop, featuring FREE**** workshops where Certified Microsoft Specialists instruct visitors on how to create and email Word (.doc) documents, Excel (.xls) documents, and our upcoming Metro file format! Each day at 9am, 7 days a week, get your complimentary Windows Virus of the Day™!***** And, of course, EVERY DAY is LOCK-IN DAY™!
*Return visits to the Microsoft Dunce Bar™ are subject to hourly maintenance charges (Registry repair subject to additional charges).
** No iPods, iBooks, or PowerBooks allowed in Microsoft Retail Store.
*** Regular Grand Opening T-Shirt price is US$19.99 plus NYS tax.
**** Workshop participants may be subject to charges on a per question basis. Rates TBD.
***** Unlimited supply. No visitor will leave uninfected.
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Maybe the X-box area of the store would be ok, but the rest would be boring.
Let me see ….
If M$ opens a retail store ….. will they have just one shelf for their wares ??
I mean…. couldnt you fit an X-Box and its games plus a few copies of WinCrap XP all on one shelf ??
I cant imagine there would be much to look at …
What HW will they stock? HP? Dell? How will the other vendor react? That’s the thing about Apple – it is an experience – it’s the hardware, the software, the iPods, the music. Microsoft isn’t cool. Microsoft is a corporate panderer who everyone is used to “dealing with”. Who needs to go to the mall to see spyware crashing a computer when they can sit at home or work and see it?
MDN: morning
The thought is almost nauseating.
Too funny. Even before the MDN take. MS does not need brand recognition. They need brand rehabilitation. From the Tiger dictionary: …restore (someone) to former privileges or reputation after a period of critical or official disfavor… A store won’t do that. What a waste of money.
And to fully replicate the Windows experience, upon entering the store you will be bombarded by ads for online gambling, porn and hair restoration services, thereupon someone will come up and introduce themselves as yourself, and steal your wallet and credit cards, and then erase your memory.
You will also be forced to pay to use the bathroom and to leave the store.
Visit the patent-pending Vapor Room™ where Certified Microsoft Specialists give unending PowerPoint® presentations promising Windows will be “as good as Apple’s Mac” next year!
… furthermore, another example of how Microsoft hasn’t got an original idea in the multi-billion dollar R&D heads. I bet 100$ that the stores are brightly lit with hardwood floors, and white fixtures.
Will they offer free showers as you leave? I know I’d feel all dirty after beeing in a MS store. yeeeeeesh >shiver<
Microsoft continues to search for the elusive coolness factor.
Fridays at the Microsoft Retail Store are “Wipe Drive and Reinstall Windows Day!”
Do you think they will have this on repeat at the store???
Are you hip enough?
Can’t wait to drop my spyware infested business laptop at the Dunce Bar and tell them to fix the #$^$% thing…
… that is, if the line-up is not several bloks long.
Schlonghorn: Every day would be “Wipe Drive and Reinstall Windows Day”
gosh! I’m really sick and tired of hearing new launch retail stores by giant electronic company like sony, MS. it is interested in watching everyboby follows apple strategy. so they think that they will be succeded? I’m so negative. MS bright side of this reatail plan won’t be shed light on itself. it won’t be kept longer. it will show some serious deficit.
I just hate whatever MS does.
Too bad they won’t be carrying the iPod by HP in their store….
To further replicate the Windows experience, there won’t be any locks on the doors and the cash registers will always be left open.
Thanks, Jamie.
No matter how many times I see that, it just makes my day.
MDN MW=”once” As in once in not enough.
zero!!!!!
THIS IS AWESOME NEWS!
Now, I can actually tell Microsoft employees how bad their software sucks in person.
Give it another 3 years and they’ll be closing their store!
The statement: The move would be the software giant’s first big stab at retail … is not true! Visitors to Macworld SF in 2001, 2002 and spent time in the Sony Metreon shopping center almost directly above the Macworld exhibit hall would have discovered the Microsoft SF store on the 2nd floor. Along with productivity software and operating systems, visitors could purchase Windows 2000 shirts, GO,msn,com keychains and other retail store goodies. While apple has usually been there first, and best, truth is that Microsoft had a store many years before Apple did.
I really hope they try it…because they won’t even come close to what Apple has going on…
ok I’m one who doesn’t just Bash MS for any reason, but this has to be the dumbest thing ever. Opening a MS on 42nd street how dumb is that, that location is made for people to go have fun! not deal with computer issues? and how about the fact that MS doesn’t make it’s own Hardware, what are they going to get customers to buy? Another update of XP? I mean I don’t get the logic to this one, or maybe they are thinking of selling the Xbox? I mean don’t people just go to game stores for those?
MG:shot, As in MS tries to take another shot at what apple as yet again
done years earlier.