“Microsoft’s clearly done testing the retail waters. It’s ready to dive in head first according to COO Kevin Turner who recently showed attendees of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference the company’s retail expansion plan,” Matt Burns reports for TechCrunch.
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“The plan is to open an additional 75 retail brick & mortar locations over the next two to three years. That’s a massive uptick from the 11 Microsoft Stores opened over the last two years. Get ready. The Microsoft vs Apple battle is about to come to a mall near you,” Burns reports. “The smart money is on Apple, though.”
MacDailyNews Take: Come on, Balmy, go for 175, at least! (This bigger the mess, the more the next poor bastard CEO will have to clean up.)
Burns reports, “Microsoft is going to lag behind the sheer number of Apple Store locations for sometime if not forever.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: For as long as it takes!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz,” “Winston,” “Manny S.,” and “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
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snark aside, the real question is whether the MS Store’s “technical specialists” really provide useful help to Windows users. that is the one really valuable customer service that is worth opening a store for, and so will help MS compete with Apple.
i’ve never seen a real life report about this. does anyone know?
unlike Apple stores, no one is going to actually buy much at an MS store. everything there is priced at list (except for featured sales items), and you can get it much cheaper at Best Buy or on line.
Apple of course does not discount anything, and you can’t save much on line (except sales tax maybe). so you might as well bo to the store and carry it home.
and related to taht, the huge advantage of Apple stores that MS can never match is on the spot warranty service. that’s HUGE when something craps out. and sooner or later, something always does.
I can’t wait to attend a grand opening and buy a “license”.
A license from Microsoft is never bought, it is only leased, so the “Retail ” stores would only be loan institutions.
I left M$ in 2005 and bought my first Apple Mac G5. I couldn’t believe how all my headaches finally went away after buying a Mac. Since then I have bought a few Apple Laptops, a Mac mini, and now I have a 27″ iMac on my desk. I’ll never go back to M$ God willing.
So Mr. Ballmer, build them stores and spread all that over bloated OS Virus crap around. Anyway, thats my 2 cents worth.
Has anyone here ever been inside a Microsoft Store? Do they offer anything compelling to the Windows buyer? Are their products cheaper than Best Buy’s? Why would even a Windows user go to MS store? The Guru bar or whatever they call it… Wannabe Genius Bar.
Maybe they’ll build all their stores directly opposite Apple’s to see who can steer in the most people. MS could get some concierges that grab people attempting to go to the Apple store and point them to the MS store direction.
Open 300 stores!!!! This message has been approved by all AAPL shareholders!
Their strategy is to lose money at every store and make it up in volume.
Faster Microsoft! Spend! Spend! 😆
The City of Redmond, Washington better get their public works crew over to Microsoft headquarters. The way MS is throwing money down the toilet, the sewers are going to plug up pretty fast.
Baldy: we can build 200, 300 or 500! No problemo. We have plenty of idiots that buy into Windows. 90% marketshare baby. We can keep going for as long as it takes. We have plenty of businesses with our brainwashed drones in place to keep them aligned to Windows.
This is great for Apple. You know how a Realtor will take a client through the bad part of town so the target house looks better?.
Yep, this is good.
“Microsoft’s clearly done testing the retail waters. It’s ready to dive in head first”
Into an empty pool.
Is it just my imagination or is MS growing orders of magnitude more delusional as its fortunes wane? Seriously, are they even vaguely aware of it when they fail anymore?
I thought they were just redoing people’s living rooms… the two from their commercials look great and my guess it’s the same amount of traffic the new stores will see too…
This reminds of the COLD war military complex escalation when Reagan was president. The Soviet Union tried to compete with America based on a false economy and eventually led to its downfall.
I highly doubt Microsoft’s revenues from their stores will support such rapid expansion. There is no way that Microsoft can continue to to fund initiatives that do not payoff.
As their trend lines go down while their expensive and unprofitable ventures go up, they will meet at some point. But long before that investors will become scared.
Already Apple is knocking on over 10% of the US market and that’s without the advantage of large scale corporate buys.
We are past the tipping point.
Apple is getting 10% of unit volume for all pcs. It is dominating the over $1000 space. If you count iPads in the mix, Apple is doing even better, in unit sales.
If you look at the gross margin per unit, Apple is simply printing money. They’re making over half of all the money made in pc sales. And they won’t need to decrease prices to grow that percentage.
And M$ has nothing like the iTMS or the App Store for Macs. Your prediction is true.
I’m reminded of the Cargo Cults. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
Where native islanders would build fake airstrips and planes from bamboo in hope that the Gods would bring them more of the wealth from the air – as once happened during the war. Same thing. Microsoft is copying Apple but the underlying premise is flawed and fake.
Interesting analogy. Had never heard the term before. Thanks for the insight.
Someone forgot to write: “M$ is dooooooomed!”
Now this lack is repaired!
Thanks.
Why would you want to go into a Microsoft store anyway? To buy ‘windoze’ & ‘word’ & what else?
Here’s the deal. Microsoft sealed its fate the day it opened the first store. Now, if it ever backs down it will be seen as a ridiculous failure, which many suspect already. They must continue to open stores and spin, spin, spin. They just opened a huge gaping wound they can never repair.
Great stuff! Microsoft copies Apple again, even though it makes no sense at all. File this one away for a good laugh a couple of years from now when they CLOSE all those stores!
I wouldn’t say they will fail when it comes down to personal preference on what Operating System someone wants to use. Of course I’ve ended up on the Mac side. Lol