Microsoft’s forthcoming Scottsdale, Arizona retail store’s “spacious floor plan will showcase everything from laptops running Windows 7 to mobile phones running Microsoft software to Xbox 360 game consoles, which customers will be able to play on a 94-inch screen in the store,” Nick Wingfield reports for The Wall Street Journal, citing “a person familiar with the matter.”
“Microsoft also expects to open a second store in a mall in Mission Viejo, Calif., in the next few weeks, with plans to slowly roll out more if the first ones are successful,” Wingfield reports.
“The stores are a clear nod to Apple Inc.’s success in retail. They also underscore the lengths to which Microsoft is willing to go to connect with consumers after stumbling in recent years with products such as Windows Vista, an operating system plagued by early technical problems that helped Apple gain ground with the Macintosh,” Wingfield reports.
“Entering the retail business is riskier for Microsoft than it was for Apple. While Apple had fewer potential business conflicts because it had such weak support from retailers when it opened its first store in 2001, Microsoft depends on existing partners in the retail business that could be threatened by the company’s expansion into their turf,” Wingfield reports. “Microsoft’s hardware partners could also be angered by its decisions about which devices to stock and which to exclude from its store shelves.”
Wingfield reports, “The most eye-catching element of Microsoft’s store designs is likely to be the wall-sized high-definition screens, according to someone who has seen them. Laptops, mobile phones, Zunes and other devices will be arranged on spacious tables inside the stores.”
MacDailyNews Take: So, portable PCs with an inferior OS (hopefully with industrial-strength antivirus and malware prevention software, not that it’ll work), WinMo 6.5 mobile phones that nobody wants, Zunes that nobody wants, and Xboxes red-ringing themselves to death. Enticing.
Wingfield continues, “The store will also have a counter, akin to the Genius Bars in Apple stores, where people will be able to bring products powered by Microsoft software for technical help, said a person familiar with the matter.”
MacDailyNews Take: That’ll be one busy Genius Bar, er… whatever they’re going to call it. “Dweeb Counter?”
Wingfield continues, “Microsoft has recruited a handful of employees from rival Apple stores. A former Apple executive, George Blankenship, who helped Apple launch its stores has also consulted with Microsoft on its retail plans, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Unsurprisingly, Microsoft doesn’t get it. They really seem to believe that people actually want to use their Windows and Office products, but most just feel forced to use them or actually are forced to use them. Then they have the Zune failure, the Xbox which is a horribly-built perpetual money loser, and WinMo the laughingstock – which is what the company has been for years now under Ballmer the Clown. These stores are a joke, too.
@Mr. Reeee
Brings back memories. WDEF virus right? It didn’t do much, but it existed and passed on by floppy disk.
@missed the target
Microsoft died several years ago, but the corpse it left behind is so enormous that it takes a bit of time for it all to decompose.
Ever wonder how come they never manage to retake the marketshare they lose? That’s why.
Get 10 Friends … Goto the store and simultaneously play the Ballmer Monkey Boy Dance on you tube …..
Wait 15 minutes until the staff turns them off , then repeat with the “I’m a MAC” ads.
http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/
Wash, rinse, then repeat
Optional … the special Zune Ad never aired.
http://www.fakesteve.net/2007/08/monkey-boy-dancing-for-zune.html
The Apple Genius bar is packed daily with defective iPhones and iMacs. Every ten minutes an iPhone is swapped. That said now Apple is considering iPhone genius bars to help with the overload. What does that say?
Very funny that MS would spend money on a store front to sell other peoples hardware. Nothing about this store is any different than Best Buy, MicroCenter or even Staples except maybe a place for gamers to hang out. Since they will all be selling the same commodity POS laptops, the reason to go to a MS store will be tech guys solving your problems. Why dont they just make it exclusively an Zune_XBoX store, at least it would have focus. I predict it will become a computer drop-off center where you bring your computer in and they tell you it will take a few days to fix whatever software issues you have. What a bad idea.
If I was an existing Microsoft retail partner today… I would drop them like a hot potato until I was sure that Microsoft’s store had failed!
If I was a Microsoft customer (trailer trash), I would be fearful of enter a want-to-be Apple store because I’m so fearful of entering a real Apple Store.
Then again most trailer trash don’t even own a PC let alone a computer!
employees were tested several times for their DUSTING SKILLS!
Wow. A bit sensitive are we Tina… Trolls are Stupid. Can you prove your statistics or are you just spreading FUD like your daddy Steve “monkeyboy” Ballmer.
@Tina: Maybe they dropped their iPhones onto a concrete floor or into the pool.
@Tina
Hey, that’s big news!
I can’t wait to point to it on message boards and to send the links for this story to my friends!
So, please post the links and sources and stories and proof of your claim, quick!
Obviously you haven’t just posted some mindless, made-up drivel that you and your MS fanboy friends have been texting to each other as you hand-code your own anti-virus programs, right?
So I’ll just wait for you to get the proof of your claim up here as fast as your CHEET-OS-dusted fingers can type and paste the links into the Feedback window.
…
Waiting! ….
I think this sums it up
http://www.derekunderwood.com/uncategorized/5-hot-tips-for-microsoft-and-its-retail-stores/
this whole idea is really silly
you have to have something to sell in a store and not just brown Zunes
How much storage space will each store require? If they’re going to sell hardware as well as software (the drawing point of the Apple Stores is that you can walk in, hand over your money, and walk out with your new computer), will they carry every single PC brand that’s out there? Or will they limit it to a “chosen few” that sign a contract, and risk the ire of every other computer maker out there?
Plus, I don’t see gamers hanging out at the MicroShop anyway — most gamers are going to be at the game specific stores like GameStop and such.
@Tina — Only “defective” iPhones I’ve seen have been the ones in to get battery replacements…wouldn’t exactly call that a “defect”.
And in my 8 years of Mac ownership I’ve only had one that needed repair; my MacBook needed a new optical drive, and since it was under AppleCare they also replaced the bottom housing and keyboard/trackpad, all at no charge. And I had the laptop back in 2 days. Mostly it’s been a case of wanting to upgrade rather than “defective” materials that got me to buy new equipment…I’m really wanting a new iMac but waiting for the Apple Store to come back up.
Ballmer calls Apple’s market share a rounding error, yet is willing to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to go head to head with them in brick and mortar locations (with the goal of not selling merchandise, but to showcase the MS experience)?!?
Let’s see, Ballmer gambling hundreds of millions of dollars for…
If Ballmer is right and these MS stores are a huge hit
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> Windows market share will climb from what … 90% to 91%?
If Ballmer is wrong and these MS stores crash and burn, it will forever be in the Top 10 lists of worse business ideas ever.
The Sony shops I’ve seen here in Australia are all the same – full of bright shiny tech, SP3s connected to huge screens… and now customers.
At least Sony has kit worth peddling. MS has nothing.
Wow, maybe I’ll actually see someone out in the wild using a Zune?!?
who came up with this microshit biz plan? it has no future. how are they going to support all the problems winblows users have with dells, sonys, agteways and compaq’s, etc… what is going to happen is customers are going to leave the store unhappy and frustrated with the lack of support microshit can give them… this store’s biz model is plain old stupid… it’s just another one of balmer’s jealous acts to TRY to compete with apple… anyone who thinks this store has a future is living in a box!
Oh geez, can you just see Microsoft having a genius bar equvalent in their stores? The line will be out the door. They will have to have a separate section just for removing spyware/malware…