MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft ought to waste their ill-gotten gains on a more direct messaging method: Buy every billboard in the U.S. and festoon them with: “Microsoft. We Have No Original Ideas. We Try To Copy Apple. Obviously And Poorly.”
Olivarez-Giles reports, “But the similarities between the Apple Store and the Microsoft Store begin to fade at the cash register — or at least they did one recent Saturday afternoon at the Shops at Mission Viejo mall. Over a half-hour period, 19 people walked out of the mall’s Apple Store carrying purchases in one of the company’s signature white bags. By comparison, just three walked out of the nearby Microsoft Store with merchandise.”
MacDailyNews Take: Two mice and a keyboard (gotta have those CTRL-ALT-DEL keys, you know).
Olivarez-Giles reports, “The survey may not have been scientific, but it reflects what analysts say is the challenge Microsoft Corp. faces in taking on Apple Inc. in America’s shopping centers. ‘The Microsoft Stores, it seems so far, lack the same cool factor as the Apple Stores,’ said Phil Baker, an independent technology analyst and consultant in Solana Beach, Calif. ‘It’s not entirely clear as to what the goal of the Microsoft Stores is, but it doesn’t seem to be as much about sales as it is about building the brand.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft’s retail stores are simply another thing in a long line of bad Apple simulations that pale in comparison to the real thing.
Could someone in the area actually count foot traffic differences between these two stores? That would be such an interesting article.
…Bing!
Discussing this in terms of “cool factor” gets old. Apple may be cool, but it’s because they have substance and they pulled themselves out of a miserable time earlier this decade. They’re cool because they make great stuff.
If M$ made cool stuff, people would go get it. It seems like Kinect may be cool, but it’s just for their smallish xbox crowd. No real need for their own store, it seems.
R,
Well said. “Cool factor” notwithstanding, Apple stores “deliver the product” — because they’ve got great product to deliver.
Hey Ballmer:
Save some $, close the big stores and open a few xbox ” kiosks” around the country. Set ’em up in McDonalds Playlands.
Apple DO make great products, that cannot be denied
Howerver, do not underestimate the role their agency played in creating the Ad campaigns that captured the attention of the average consumer with the iPod in the first place.
TBWA/Chiat Day I think it was.
Great R&D
Great Products
Great Creative Campaigns
Great Campaign execution
All these things have come together to perpetuate Apple’s coolness and helping them reach where they are today.
MSFT has made their big sums of money and name (for better or worse) targeting businesses, not consumers. AAPL has made their name and huge fortunes targeting consumers, not businesses.
The retail mall strategy plays to AAPL’s strengths, and to MSFT’s weakness.
Get a fsking clue MSFT investors!
Maybe because people know apple has it’s own products to sell beyond software and peripherals. Microsoft cant show something like an “apple ecosystem”
Apple is a clear and focussed brand, with a solid design style.
Its products, especially ‘iP’ wares, appeal to consumers.
MS is a software company that sells widely.
But companies using ‘Doze etc compete for consumer attention.
Thus MS stores are less focussed than those of Apple.
PC folks are so fat and lazy they don’t bother leaving the house to get their junk electronics.
“The Microsoft Stores, it seems so far, lack the same cool factor as the Apple Stores …”
Shit is either hot or cold; nothing cool about it.
Except for MS BS, which manages to be tepid.
The whole idea of a Microsoft store is silly. I think Apple started the Apple Store because almost every other retailer ignored them. So they went out and outdid the retailers who now are realizing their mistake and are trying to sell Apple products again. Microsoft had it good for a long time. Microsoft needs to realize most people see them as a sub-brand. They aren’t going to buy a Microsoft windows PC, they go by a Dell, HP, Lenova, Sony, toshiba, etc. PC. It’s the same with the smart phone. The only thing that Microsoft has that people really think Microsoft when they buy it is Office.
It must be weather in Seattle that produces the high number of doofuses that inhabit the town. Clammy cold wind blowing in from Canada. Take Baldy as an example. Have you seen a bigger train wreck? It couldn’t have worked out more appropriately than crashing two Boeing 787’s together which given the penchant for Boeing to self destruct might yet be a self-fulfilling prophesy. What better way to remove two goofy corporations than to crash-land a 787 right on top of MS campus getting rid in one go two incompetent set of managers.
Just got back from camping all night in front of the local Microsoft Store for Black Friday deals and I gotta tell you MAC fangirls the experience was exhilarating! None of the smug, pretentious MAC sheep to annoy you and barely any time to speak with Microsoft specialists about Zunes, Office updates and registry hacks because Redmond has really hit their stride with magic, buzz-worthy consumer products. The place was packed!
It has to be rather disheartening hearing the sound of crickets in your dingy, dumpy little Microsoft Store wannabe shops. At least there isn’t a line for your copycat Zunes.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Ahh it’s the cool factor why people buy Apple products. Finally we know.
What an ignorant PC ass.
Jobs himself has said cool isn’t as much about how something looks as how it works. Apple has used advertising effectively but there is no magical creation of cool factor by marketing. Their ads never try to tell you Apple is cool or say “WOW” about a product. Only the user can decide that.
Microsoft built their company by stealing and copying the work of others, mostly Apple. In recent years, with Apple’s stunning new IP better protected, that strategy has become delusional, and with the stores, it’s farcical.
Nineteen transactions in a half-hour at my favorite Apple store, would be called a lull.
I like Ballmer’s retail strategy, I like it a lot.
They need to open hundreds more stores so they have a greater retail presence. That will 1) reduce their cash, 2) let more consumers see how pathetic they are, 3) help out property owners looking to fill vacancies, 4) employ many in the designing (copying) & building out of the spaces and 5) at least temporarily, employ many folks who are desperate for a job.
@DrMcr
A good marketing message is one that caries through the spirit of the company and their products to the consumer. People tire quickly of products that don’t deliver, regardless of how cool they may be made to seem by advertising. The ones that lack true value to their customers are called fads. I think it’s pretty clear Apple is beyond the fad category.
A great coach once said, winning is not a strategy. Playing hard is a strategy and winning is a by-product of executing that strategy effectively. This is how Apple does it.
@Bunched UP – FYI, Boeing moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago awhile back. Don’t necessarily think it was a good idea, just one more artifact from its takeover by McDonnell-Douglas.
Is ZuneTang back? Missed ya here, Buttercheeks!!!!!!
What a cargo cult!
What are Micro$haft’s stores?
A poorly thought out knee-jerk reaction to an unstoppable juggernaut?
@R,
The Kinect is cool because Mafia$oft bought it from someone else.
To understand the difference between Microsoft and Apple, one need read no further than, “It looks like an Apple Store”.