“After news yesterday that the software giant was plunging into the retail market, I was surprised to find little mention that Microsoft’s last store effort that ended in failure,” Kara Swisher reports for All ThingsD.
“MicrosoftSF,” Microsoft’s last grand retail attempt, “was located in San Francisco’s Metreon Sony Entertainment Center,” Swisher reports. “The huge 8,500-square-foot store with 160 Microsoft products and related software and hardware from 30 partners was billed in a June of 1999 press release, as ‘an interactive, hands-on retail environment in which people of all ages, from all walks of life and at all levels of technological expertise can explore the benefits technology can bring them. Far more than just another computer store, microsoftSF is a showcase for the latest technology from Microsoft and the hardware and software companies with which it collaborates,'” Swisher reports.
Swisher reports, “And Microsoft CEO (then President) Steve Ballmer weighed in enthusiastically: ‘We are delighted to be able to showcase in this one-of-a-kind retail environment the entire range of Microsoft software and hardware, as well as the technology of other companies who share the vision of how the PC and the Internet can empower people any time, anywhere. San Francisco and the Silicon Valley are home to the world’s largest and one of the most sophisticated high-tech audiences, so this was the natural place to create this site–dedicated to showing, in an interactive environment, the way technology can enhance our working, learning, living and playing.'”
Swisher reports, “Not so much, as it turned out. The store closed in 2001.”
Full article here.
