“Microsoft through its Facebook page and separate confirmations has confirmed another retail store opening that will clash with an Apple location,” Electronista reports.
“The new store will open in northern Austin’s Domain shopping center, a location Apple has occupied since 2007,” Electronista reports. “It hasn’t given a date or an exact position of where the store will be located.”
Electronista reports, “News of the store follows just over a week after Microsoft planned a similar push Palo Alto in California, one of the closest locations to Apple’s actual headquarters. The store is due to open in April.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Microsoft Store. Where Apple Store customers go to play the gluteal tuba.
We like Ballmer’s strategy. We like it a lot.
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That’s such an excellent idea! I think Microsoft ought to do that near every Apple store. They’ll make a killing!
Microsoft opens more stores across from Apple, it will make choice far easier. Now they can look at Microsoft and then go to the Apple store to see what they have been missing. Maybe Ballmers stradagy is working. PC sales are down and Apple is up. Is it a coincidence? Maybe not.
Ummmmm, still think Ballmer covert operator for Apple.
Aeropostale has closed across from the Apple Store in the Eastview Mall, Victor (Rochester), NY. Will MS move in there?
As for the graph MDN’s take, at first I mistook Microsoft’s results for the graph’s baseline. Flat, indeed.
You have to give M$ credit, their stock has gone from $25 to $30 in the last couple of months. Oh yeah, it went from $60 to $25 too. Oh, well.
I was checking out the graphs for NASDAQ in general last night. I found that DayTraderTards 😯 are merely buying tech stocks as a generic pile of paper. IOW the graph for Microsoft is only mimicking the graph of the NASDAQ.
Apple obviously is driving up the NASDAQ and Microsoft is merely along for the ride. I know of nothing whatsoever that Microsoft has accomplished to deserve any rise in stock price. They remain in the long term doldrums, as expected.
The Domain is a huge outdoor complex. Wonder where Micro$oft will set up shop… on the high-end side with Apple and Neiman Marcus or the low-rent side near Dick’s?
Can’t wait to visit and ROFLMAO.
They can split the difference and put it in the empty Borders space. Give the customers plenty of elbow room.
Or it can buy out Dick’s and set up a hybrid store, Soft Dick’s.
If I set up a hardware store within a store in Microsoft’s Soft Dick store can I call my store the Hard Dick Hardware Store in Soft Dick’s Store?
No, no you can’t.
It’s your company. Call it whatever you want. Sounds good to me. So would you have to reach around the Soft Dick store to get to the Hard Dick Hardware Store?
Having had nothing but lousy experiences there, I prefer to call them Dick Heads.
Great idea M$!!! Now when you go bankrupt Apple can pick up the real-estate cheap. Easy way to expand; space in close proximity to Apple’s present space. Good future place for selling the iPhone. Way to go M$!!! 🙂
No advantage to Apple – why take over another store in a mall where you are already located?
Have you no sense of irony? It would be a great place for Apple to sell iPhones! In the store previously owned by M$. Considering that sales and profits from the iPhone out did M$ sales and profits for their entire line. 🙂
Will Ballmer be donning a blue tee shirt and manning the cash register behind the counter giving away free tickets to a Green Day concert?
He’ll be watching porno movies in the back.
You HAD to give me that visual for the day. Thanks a lot.
They’d never think to give away Green Day tickets. They’re too cool. Think more along the lines of Justice Beaver, Selena Gomez, and the Jonas Brothers.
Aren’t most of those Disney “acts”? Just making the estate of Steve Jobs all the richer.
Love that graph of the stock price comparison!
Positioning Microsoft Stores near Apple Stores in the same shopping malls gives people an opportunity to see the difference. Even a comparison of store fixtures wouldn’t be to Microsoft’s advantage.
The great thing about having a Microsoft Store next to an Apple Store is it will be a great place to go for some peace and quiet after having been in perpetually busy, noisy, consumer excited Apple Store. The MS Store promises nice ‘n quiet and nearly empty of people. Even the employees can barely stay awake as cobwebs & dust gather on their products-you-can-buy-cheaper-elsewhere-nothin’-special-here aisles.
Except when they inexplicably decide to blast the place with music and start dancing in your face! Yuck!
Microsoft. Skating to where the puck will never be.
reeling around the rink after getting smashed in face by the puck
…and then encountering the Broad Street Bullies.
I have never been to a MSFT store and have no plans to do so.
I have no idea why I would want to go to a MSFT store.
What do they sell? Office . . . Windows . . . ok . . .
Seriously, what does MSFT sell that normal people could buy?
Spreadsheets, IT file servers stuff, and . . . video games maybe?
What will it be next, the Facebook store at the mall?
You can always go to Best Buy and marvel at how so many non-Apple products are real cheap crap. Who’s the genius(es) who thought “Diarrhea Brown” made aesthetic sense?…
Yeah, that brown is nasty. But let’s not forget about the Flower Power iMacs. Even Apple can make a mistake once in awhile.
Hey! I liked those!
They were good for the purpose of ID’ing the office dipsoids at distance
Please don’t tell Facebook to open a store!
Because then about 3 years later Google will HAVE to open some garishly decorated advertising agency / Ice Cream parlor sort of retail space. The employees won’t really know why they’re there, but they will no doubt get free soda.
Google is already in the store front business in Oz.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/google-android-store-australia/
I live close enough to The Domain that I visit the Apple Store there when I’m in town.
Actually, I look forward to going into a MS Store and letting them know what I think of their shitastic products and how much I hate Windohs.
MS stores will not bring Apple customers Windows ( they’ve been there, done that).
What is more likely is qthat they will bring more Windows users to Apple. Watch the 50% new to Mac statistic grow to 75% in that area.
Hey yeah, Ballmer is making it possible and easier for PC users to compare and switch to Apple by having their craptastic stores nearby! Once again Monkey Boy is helping Apple out and spending millions and millions of dollars doing it! What a guy! What a stragedy! We like it a lot! Proving he’s nobody’s fool but his own once again.
I can’t help but wonder how many people go to a store to buy software; particularly Windows. What could a MS store have than any of the other 1000 vendors don’t? You don’t go to the Apple store (for the most part) to buy the OS; you go for the hardware and the social experience. Gotta love Balmer’s delusions, though.
Clash?? Really?? In the same way a Pagani Zonda clashes with a K-Car.
Go on by the Microsoft Store and get some…free concert tickets. Then go by the Apple Store for the OS X-based computers and iOS devices that you really want.
I love Ballmer!!!
Will someone please capture some time lapse footage taken at the entrance of both stores and put it up on YouTube in a split screen. That’d be most amusing
Nice idea, but you’ll get arrested as a potential terrorist for trying.
Long live our police state!
Good idea! But no, I can’t do it.
Delusional. But hey, what else do they know to do?
Nothing like a good side by side comparison. Will definitely work in Apple’s favor.
Do you think they give out “Stupid Idea of the Day” award at Microsoft for marketing to implement, or is this just coincidence?
Would have loved to see who carried home the Zune trophies: “Best Stupid Name” “Best Stupid Color” it doesn’t get any better.
LOL… I like that.
I’ve been to the MS store in Bellevue, WA, which is next to the Apple store, and the sense I get is MS is DESPERATELY trying to copy Apple. It is shameless and sad, and every time I hear about another MS store opening next to Apple, I have to wonder if they really think they are fooling anyone.
Why waste energy on ground floor R&D when you can just watch what others are doing successfully, then copy and move in with all the muscle of a big company?
—- Microsoft Mission Statement
Hey, Microsoft is just adding extra value to the shopping experience of customers who pass the Microsoft store on their way to and from the Apple Store and think to themselves, “Thank God I don’t have to shop at Microsoft!”
I can think of no better way to sell Apple products than to put them side-by-side with equivalent Microsoft rubbish.
Smooth move MS, playing right into Apple’s hands. No more anti-Apple bullshite mythology out of MS rep mouths. Customers simply walk next door to the Apple Store and discover the facts. I like that! 😎
Bring it on Ballmer!
heeheehee
Ballmer – CEO for life! Be still my heart.