“Microsoft’s policy of shadowing Apple in its retail openings will reach a symbolic high in the near future as the company plans to open a location near Apple’s very first opened store,” Electronista reports.
Advertisement: Students, Parents and Faculty save up to $200 on a new Mac.
“New job listings have been asking for staff for a Microsoft store in McLean, Virginia,” Electronista reports. “The Windows developer hasn’t outlined a location but is likely to try for the Tysons Corner Center given its pattern of trying to get as close as possible to wherever Apple’s shops are located.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Waiting for Apple customers to slip and fall and hit their heads hard enough to wander into a store full of bad Apple knockoffs and overheating game consoles? We like their strategy. We like it a lot.
(Don’t worry, they’re not smart enough to deploy banana peels.)
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jax44” for the heads up.]
Monkey see, monkey do !
Monkey dance like an elephant
LOL!
Do Microsoft honestly think that Apple Stores are successful because there is no alternative? People aren’t just going into Apple Stores because they decide they want a computer/music player/phone/tablet and the Apple Store just happens to be the first store they see. Microsoft obviously have very little faith in the public to be making informed decisions.
I would hazard a guess that they’re following the principle of ‘comparative’ shopping i.e. locate as near your competition as you can so that potential purchasers will visit you too. That’s why you get whole streets with car showrooms wall-to-wall or electrical suppliers / clothes shops all with sight of each other on retail parks etcetera.
Shame that Micro$oft’s Windoze products are no real competition …..
Vista, a world without walls ? I prefer a world without gates or windows !
I would think that they shouldn’t want their products anywhere NEAR an Apple store – this just makes it easier for Windows users to go to the Microsoft store and walk into the Apple store and be able to quickly compare directly without having to get in their car and drive elsewhere. MS opening so many stores in close proximity to Apple stores may have the opposite effect of what they want.
“For as long as it takes!”
I’d hazard a guess that Microsoft has become so delusional they are now entirely disconnected from reality.
It’ll go down exactly as HTML5 Gordon suspects.
Windows sufferers will ask themselves, hey, why is the MS Store empty and the Apple Store accross the street always packed? Are Macs/iPads/iPods really that much better than PCs/Windows slabs/Zunes?
They’ll get really curious, check out the Apple Store, and become forever lost to Microsoft. It’s like a customer-losing-machine. No, wait, not like. It is. And the beauty is that MS will never catch on, because they labour under the illusion their trash is the greatest treasure ever. This is perfect.
People say MS doesn’t innovate, but that just isn’t true. They’re clearly innovative in the art of wanton self destruction.
We have a switcher friend who recently spent 40(!) hours with Microsoft tech support trying to rid her PCs of malware. This was the final nail in the coffin for her, so she called me up and asked my advice for what kind of Mac to get.
She’s now waiting for the new MBAs to be announced and will be buying one ASAP. Suck on that Itty-bitty-squishy!
I visited the Apple Store in the Mall of America in Minneapolis. Directly across from it was the Microsoft store. The placement of the logo over the door was identical. So was the store setup- tables with computers. The store employees wore lanyards with their names. It was all identical except one thing- The Apple Store was full of people, and the Microsoft store was virtually empty besides a few people playing Kinnect on xBox in the corner.
Do they have BSOD-themed, blue tinted windows?
lol
I like there strategy! I like it a lot.
Apple could play a little hardball. Mall managers would kill to land an Apple store as they attract as many or more customers than stores like Macy’s.
All Apple has to do is have a non compete clause in their contract which would prohibit any store like Dell or Microsoft in the same center. While they are at it they might even go further by prohibiting any vendor from selling Android, or Windows mobile cell phones, including Radio Shack.
You do not like it – tough beans! That the way it goes at retail if you have the clout.
Nah, it might be more illuminating to juxtapose a customer devoid MS store right next to a thriving Apple Store.
Besides which, Apple might want to encourage MS all it can, to ill-spend some of that ill-gotten cash they have towards building those 75 planned stores. May Mr. Ballmer remain in charge to see off the very last of those store launches and beyond. Apple ought to arm twist the mall owners if needed, to make this happen.
“Microsoft’s policy of shadowing Apple in its retail openings will reach a symbolic high in the near future as the company plans to open a location near Apple’s very first opened store,” this made me chuckle.
Symbolic high… hahahahahhh… guess I’m easily amused.
Fools fools fools!! It was probably the staff members playing connect ….
Sorry Kinnect
You were right the first time.
Hahaha!!! 😀
I visited the Apple Store on opening day in Tysons Corner, there was a line from the store to the end of the hall, up the corridor leading out the entrance, and around the corner of the department store. When I got in line there was over 600 people in front of me, I know because I did a count. When I left, the line had actually grown! First 1000 in got a T-shirt (I still have mine in the plastic tube it came in, completely mint). I drove up from school in central Virginia to be there on that historic day!
Let’s see how many people line up for a Micro¢oft store.
BTW I eventually moved into the area and worked at the Tyson’s store for about a year. Good times.
I think the first people in line for the MS store get a diploma of idiocy, a handful of mud and a kick on the head.
(http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode20.htm#13)
No, they get free Miley Cyrus tickets. I personally would take the handful of mud and kick to the head first, but there’s no accounting for tastes.
Microsoft’s leadership is delusional. They think have something called the “Microsoft Store” is a positive marketing message; people these days intentionally avoid “Microsoft” and “Windows,” whenever possible. Microsoft will continue a slow decline, as long as its leaders live in their isolated fantasyland.
Don’t worry. M$ pursuing this strategy only serves to emphasize the difference between the two company’s offerings rather than present a genuinely competitive product. Despite some thoughts to the contrary, the buying public are not stupid. Apple’s innovation and product supiorority is not a state secret. Fans should not panic, the apple offer can stand on it’s own. The Dr.
Microstupidity at it again…
Microsoft will soon introduce it’s new social offering: NitwitNation, for all the Nitwit Softie fans.
Microsoft could have gone after the market that Apple has not; the Midwest, South, and smaller high end retail outlets. That way when people from those markets did walk into an Apple store they would think Apple was just like MS. Going after markets that Apple ignored worked well for MS in the 80’s and 90’s. Instead they are continuing the 00’s strategy of going after Apple’s strong markets years late. That did not work well.
Mr. Ballmer, in case you are reading this, please ignore this guy. He doesn’t know more than you. Very few do (ask yourself whether he’s as rich as you). I think you are on to something big all by yourself, and should continue to follow your winning strategy to the very end.
I agree with krquet. WetFX doesn’t know anything, you can safely ignore him and “stay the course.” His idea sounds sensible, but remember — YOU know best.
I like your strategy, MS. I like it a lot.
I have no fear of Ballmer and his yes men reading MDN. I don’t think it could get through MS’s firewall. They would not want people to think.
When visiting my local Apple Store, I’m more likely to walk into the Coach leather goods store than any Microsoft store.
Coach is right next door to Apple, they also have a mostly white interior, bleached wooden fixtures, etc. The one thing Coach does not have is crowds; when I notice the lack of crowds I realize I’m about to walk into the wrong store.
Surely there must be some visitors here that frequent malls that currently have both stores, e.g., Mission Viejo, Lenox Square (Atlanta), Mall of America (Minnesota), Fashion Valley Mall (San Diego), etc.
Pics of such would certainly be interesting.
I enjoy walking into the Microsoft Store at the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN, to ask the sales staff where I can find an iphone.
The Microsoft Store has similar traffic across from the Apple Store, but rarely do I see anyone actually buy anything there.
Cruel 😉
This actually makes sense from Microsoft’s point of view. They can’t conceive that their products are mediocre and people don’t want them, so the only alternative they can see is that they need more marketing. Ballmer, for as long as it takes!
I can see it now: MS will have their store employees wait to take a bathroom break until Apple store employees are allowed to take theirs.
Frankly, Microshaft is getting ridiculous.
I was in the Apple store at 10.15 on Saturday to get my MB repaired. There must have been 50 people in the store already. No other store comes close to that.
Apple have plenty of staff available and the customer service is great.
“.Microsoft could have gone after the market that Apple has not; the Midwest,….. .”
Can’t speak for the other areas you mentioned, but
I’ve never seen the Jordan Creek Apple Store when it wasn’t packed..
In fact… once .. (when I was playing around with a 27-inch iMac) … a man who said he saw a Mac on TV .. and wondered what all the fuss was about.. started asking me questions about the platform…
I showed him the “Stealth Mode” … and he turned around and bought the 27 incher right then …
The zit-faced kid who worked there asked me if I wanted a job..
I was not trying to insult the Midwest, or say that there was no stores up there. I live in the southern US ( I don’t think southern FL is part of “The South”) and we do have Apple stores. I just get a little mad when Apple opens up another store in NYC or CA. I know a lot of people who would switch if they could experience an Apple store. I would love to see one in every State ( yea I know, smoke some more pot). My point was about how insane MS is now, totally blind to there own past good and bad. The irony is that both Apple and MS lost sales when they put the salesperson in charge. Of course MS should him.
Headline should read MSFT to open another ghost town.
I visited a microsoft store across from an apple store in IL a while back. Apple store was packed. Microsoft store was empty (2 other people beside me and my friend). The surface computer was kind of cool but everything else was junk. How can they compete with Apple in retail when apple makes a healthy profit margin on the hardware they make and sell. While windows hardware is commoditized and sold at razor thin margins. Will that store make enough money selling dells to even pay the rent at Tysons Corner? Certainly MSFT has enough money in the bank to lose money at retail but as there fat SW margins are pulled down by trying to mimic Apple in retail it’s one more nail in Ballmer’s coffin. Under this moron’s watch MSFT has fallen behind Apple in Market Cap, and Revenue along with watching apple revolutionize and dominate music, phones and tablets while msft has faded into irrelevance in these areas.
The perfect marriage between Steve Ballmer and Apple – an iPod wearing Ballmer doing the monkey boy dance on stage at a developers conference, a dance comparable to the Apple store dance.
Wow, amazing!!!
Thanks, priceless
I would be ashamed to work there, knowing that every single person walking by is laughing their heads off in their mind. They would have to pay me double to even consider it.
thats exactly! MS store employes should be ashamed of them selves. to me, they may as well dress up as clowns.
One word: TITANIC
If it’s anything like the “success” they’ve had being near the Apple Store in Mission Viejo, CA, the only crowds in the Microsoft Store will be the mall rats gathered around playing the XBox and wide screen TV–both strategically placed in front of the store to give the appearance of customers.
I’ve been to that store! It’s embarrassing.
I’d rather work at Hot Dog on a Stick.
heh-heh! Your comment just brought back 40-odd year old memories of when I was stationed in West Berlin. I went on a tour of East Berlin and bought some tourist slides. One of them was of the Brandenburg Gate, which at the time had a barrier in front of it so tourists and East Germans couldn’t actually go up to it. In the background was the Berlin Wall. The photographer (on probably orders of the Propaganda Ministry) assembled a large crowd with the effect of blocking out the barrier and the Wall, making it look like a very festive and cool place to visit. Not!