back to article Microsoft reveals details of flagship London store within spitting distance from Apple's

Microsoft has revealed the location of its flagship UK store – just up the road from Apple's flamboyant, tree-lined Regent Street shop. The new store, which the company reportedly started scouting for back in 2015, will be at Oxford Circus, one of the most stressful places to visit busiest shopping areas in London. Microsoft …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Homage to Red Dwarf

    Subtitle really should have been "Android, everybody needs and Android"

    1. RyokuMas
      Trollface

      Re: Homage to Red Dwarf

      To be fair, the actual quote is " "Androids, everybody needs good Androids..."

      ... since stalking is nasty and a criminal offence, I'm still waiting to see one of these mythical "good" Androids...

      1. Chemical Bob

        Re: Homage to Red Dwarf

        "I'm still waiting to see one of these mythical "good" Androids"

        The *best* android ever:

        http://andromeda.wikia.com/wiki/Rommie

  2. Dave 126 Silver badge

    > It also puts it just two minutes' walk – some might say pissing distance

    Since this is a technical blog, shall we calculate the pressure required on one's bladder to piss the distance one can walk in two minutes?

    We will assume that the walker and the pisser are the same individual, and that walking speed is limited by sheer number of other pedestrians. The pisser is at street level, the nozzle at average height.

    For the sake of the sums, we shall ignore wind.

    1. katrinab Silver badge

      At Oxford Circus during rush hour, when the station is closed due to overcrowding, and everyone is queued up outside waiting for the gates to re-open, you can walk about 2 - 3 meters in two minutes. I would guess, but I'm obviously not an expert on the subject, that with the optimum aim angle, you could do that at normal bladder pressure.

      1. FuzzyWuzzys
        Facepalm

        You need to factor in age of the test subject, "plumbing pressure" reduces with age!

        1. mics39
          Trollface

          I assume no elderly person except rare oddities will venture into this store, so just figure for teen pressure. Except this might be a sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of central London.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If you're going to get technical, you should control for mutilation: Cut/Uncut or public toilet user... (Sprinkler attachment)

    3. David 132 Silver badge
      Windows

      For the sake of the sums, we shall ignore wind.

      "First, assume a spherical cow..."

      Gross oversimplification. I'm proud to say that no-one has ever ignored my wind.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A binary future for the Microsoft shop

    1) Offer free gaming. Outcome: A very, very crowded shop full of every scruffy, smelly teenage tourist in town. All jostling, shouting and pushing to have a go on the latest Xbox.

    2) Don't offer free gaming. Outcome: A clean, tidy, quiet shop with barely a single visitor each day. And even that visitor only went in because they thought it was the Apple store.

    1. chivo243 Silver badge

      Re: A binary future for the Microsoft shop

      @Ledswinger

      3) Don't forget the tumbleweeds... ya gotta have tumbleweeds!

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: tumbleweeds

        Are they still doing gigs?

        Oh, I've got a brand new combine harvester...

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: A binary future for the Microsoft shop

      Well, they have to do something to arract the punters... Oh wait, they might not actually sell anything....

      Last year, I went to a Mall in Delaware. There was an Apple Store and a Microsoft Store.

      The staff in the MS store outnumbered the customers and this was in the middle of a Saturday Afternoon.

      Now, if they offered classes in how to remove their slurping from Windows 10 in ways that survived 'updates' I would think the place would be packed out for at least a few weeks at any rate.

      If the offer gaming then how is that really an advert for MS? Gamers already know which games are on which platform so they'll go there for the game and buy it from wherever is cheapest in the Internet.

      Which leads me to wonder what the income per sq ft of the new store will be. After all they are setting up shop in possibly the most expensive bit of retail real estate in the country.

      1. James O'Shea

        Re: A binary future for the Microsoft shop

        There are two local (depending on how far you stretch 'local') Microsoft Stores: one in Boca Town Centre, on Glades Road, exit 45 on I-95 (base is off Southern Blvd, exit 68) and one in Aventura Mall, on Brickell Blvd, nearest I-95 exit is 16, Ives Dairy Road. (Yes, that's 52 miles from Southern...) in both cases there was an Apple Store at the mall before Microsoft showed up. (There are seven Apple Stores in the Dade-Broward-Palm Beach tri-county area: Dadeland Mall, Falls Road, and Aventura, in Dade; Galleria in Broward; and Boca Town Centre, Wellington Green, and Gardens in Palm Beach) In all cases the Apple Store has a lot to far too many customers, while the Microsoft stores have two to three staff per customer, and it's not as if they have a lot of staff. The Microsoft Store in Aventura is on the second level, less than ten meters from the nearest escalator down to the first level; the Apple Store is less than 100 meters from that escalator. The Apple Store is also roughly three times the size of the Microsoft Store and almost certainly makes more money for Microsoft in a month by selling MS Office for Mac than the Microsoft Store makes, total, in a year. The Microsoft Store at Boca is even smaller, less than a quarter the size of the Apple Store at Boca and I can't say for certain that they've actually made a sale. Ever. I suppose that they really must have, but you couldn't prove it by me. There used to be a Dell kiosk at Wellington Green less than fifty meters from the Apple Store; the three guys manning it were very, very, VERY lonely for about 18 months and then it was gone. The Microsoft Stores at Aventura and Boca are not only small, they're close to the food courts at both places... cheaper locations, because of the noise and smells from the food courts. Meanwhile, the Apple Store at Boca moved to larger accommodations, and the Apple Store at Gardens has captured one of its neighbors and is currently being 'expanded'. Apple's paying a lot of money for good locations and seems to be making it back. Microsoft's paying a lot of money for bad locations and looks to be losing much of it.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. TheVogon

            Re: A binary future for the Microsoft shop

            "Is you RETURN button broke ?"

            How can a return button be out of money? Or did you mean broken?

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A binary future for the Microsoft shop

      "1) Offer free gaming"

      Of course it will offer free gaming. No one is going to pay to play?!

      "Outcome: A very, very crowded shop"

      Easily resolved by a numbers limit / queuing / booking system, and a couple of heavies on the door...

      "And even that visitor only went in because they thought it was the Apple store."

      Or because they need a proper computer like a Surface Pro / Surface Studio...

  4. RockBurner

    Is this where you go to get support for o365 outages?

    1. Semtex451
      Coat

      On the Surface that might be a good idea

      1. David 132 Silver badge

        Aaargh... endless Microsoft puns, I feel like I'm cortana loop...

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Aaargh... endless Microsoft puns, I feel like I'm cortana loop...

          You appear to be attempting to write a pun. Would you like some help with that?

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's will be just like the Brighton in the sixties with MS fanboys and Apple fanboys having a punch-up, they'll be blood all over Oxford Street.

    Well at least I'm safe in the FreeBSD flagship store, it's a garden shed in Skegness.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Really?

      More likely to be tapping away on their phones, tutting to themselves.

    2. David 132 Silver badge
      Joke

      Well at least I'm safe in the FreeBSD flagship store, it's a garden shed in Skegness.

      La-de-dah. I'd be in the Gentoo flagship store, except I haven't yet figured out how to attach the ceiling to the walls, or indeed build the walls.

      1. 45RPM Silver badge

        @David 132

        Walls? We’d be glad to have Walls. Without bricks or mortar. Or walls. I’m in the Arch flagship store. I haven’t worked out how to build the floor yet. It’s very…

        …spacey here. As in lots of it. Free, that is. On my hard disk.

      2. katrinab Silver badge
        Joke

        Much easier on FreeBSD:

        pkg install ceiling

        it will know that the walls are a dependency and install that too

        Having said that, most Linux distros have something similar, but it might be something like apt-get install ceiling or yum install ceiling.

        1. a_yank_lurker

          @katrinab - Arch et. al. sudo pacman -S ceiling (have to be root to install)

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          "pkg install ceiling

          it will know that the walls are a dependency and install that too"

          A purist will do...

          cd /usr/ports/buildtools/ceiling-no_x11

          make install clean

          And as with pkg, all dependencies taken care of.

          If you need a paint job, you cd /usr/ports/buildtools/ceiling instead :-)

    3. Arthur the cat Silver badge

      Well at least I'm safe in the FreeBSD flagship store, it's a garden shed in Skegness.

      Yes, but what colour is the shed?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        >Yes, but what colour is the shed?

        Who do you think we are, Apple ?

        We can't afford paint.

    4. Robert Moore
      Paris Hilton

      Well at least I'm safe in the FreeBSD flagship store, it's a garden shed in Skegness.

      Have you seen the Skegness monster?

    5. MJI Silver badge

      Actually

      You can have games there as well.

      Playstation.

    6. chr0m4t1c
      Joke

      MS fanboys?

      Both of them?

  7. TRT Silver badge

    I'm more concerned about this decor...

    An 8-bit palette of eye-watering intensity and if they have shelves or pegs for accessories then they'll be arranged (no choice) alphabetically with a helpful letter "A" to tell you where that section starts.

  8. RyokuMas
    Coat

    Does this means...

    That there will be public viewings for their oh-so-frequent self-inflicted gun-related foot injuries?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good idea to do this in London..

    .. for the same reason there will probably be one in LA: plenty of cheap out of work actors (commonly referred to as waiters) so it's easy to hire a crowd for any event.

    I lack the imagination to make the enormous leap of belief that there will be any other reason for there to ever be a crowd. Windows 11? Office NG? Not a chance. Maybe Xbox will draw some public, but that's about it.

  10. chivo243 Silver badge

    Last time

    My friends went into an Apple store, I waited outside, down the block. I doubt I would even walk on the same street as a MS store.

    1. David 132 Silver badge
    2. DustyP

      Re: Last time

      The Marks and Spencer sore is further down Oxford Street towards Marble Arch.

  11. 0laf
    Meh

    Doubleplus-Meh

    Will anyone give a shit? Might as well open a Hotpoint shop or a Dyson shop. Coz whether you like or not and no matter how shiny you make it MS your stuff is white goods.

    Actually a Dyson shop would probably have more allure.

    1. katrinab Silver badge

      Re: Doubleplus-Meh

      The Dyson shop is at the Marble Arch end of Oxford Street

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/07/05/dyson-opens-first-uk-store-on-oxford-street/

    2. GrumpenKraut
      Trollface

      Re: Doubleplus-Meh

      > Actually a Dyson shop would probably have more allure.

      Also their product suck less.

    3. hplasm
      Coat

      Re: Doubleplus-Meh

      "Actually a Dyson shop would probably have more allure."

      And would have more technology. And it would suck less...

      <edit> Dammit, Grumpenkraut! :)

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Doubleplus-Meh

      Actually a Dyson shop would probably have more allure.

      It should at least have a VERY clean floor :)

  12. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Within spitting distance? This could get messy.

    At least it's handy for a nice afternoon tea in Liberty's café.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      At least it is handy

      For a nice swim in the 100+ year old pool that is in the University of Westminster building between Oxford Circus and the BBC.

      Then tea at Liberty's

  13. Duffy Moon

    Great

    I'll have somewhere to take my Surface Pro 3 for repair...unless they won't be offering repair services.

  14. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

    At least..

    .. it'll give people queuing for the Apple store a nice empty room to wait in..

  15. Stumpy

    I wonder if they'll be shipping in authentic tumbleweed to roll down the aisles?

  16. Martin 63

    @GrumpenKraut

    'Also their product suck less'

    Be careful there :)

  17. arctic_haze

    A great idea

    That's where I'll wait all night for the Windows 10 Creators Update!

    1. David 132 Silver badge

      Re: A great idea

      And I'll be there in me pac-a-mac, writing down the numbers of the trains hotfixes.

      "Ooh! KB3213522! I haven't seen that one yet!"

  18. SVV

    Hell plans slight temperature increase

    Sadly, I can see this being some sort of a "success" in the sense of it not losing too many millions of pounds o year. The sort of clueless, glassy eyed zombie tourists who swarm down Oxford Street, lost in bewildered amazement at the amount of crap being offered for sale to them are surely ripe for stumbling into this place once they're sufficiently in enough of a trance.

    Mind you, whether they have the desire and money to actually buy anything is another matter. I suspect that "flagship store" in pricey location really equates to "massive loss we can write off against tax".

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    tree-lined Regent Street ?

    tree-lined Regent Street ? there are no trees on regent street

    https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5122568,-0.1398527,3a,75y,301.89h,88.57t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sZSLP-eQHhezWbDMxuS8-7w!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DZSLP-eQHhezWbDMxuS8-7w%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D284.197%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: tree-lined Regent Street ?

      Sure, but Beki wrote: "tree-lined Regent Street shop", which is not the same thing.

  20. Mystic Megabyte
    FAIL

    Wow!

    I can't wait to drive several hundred miles to visit the Microsoft products museum.

  21. Miss Config
    Thumb Down

    Dirty Old Town

    If the queues for Oxford Circus Tube aren't bad enough, just remember you are in the physically dirtiest place on the planet. When BoJo was mayor he was always arguing with the Guardian about exactly how dirty Oxford Street was : NOT the dirtiest street on Earth but admittedly in the Top Ten.

  22. pxd

    Something to tell my grandchildren . . .

    Oh, yes, kids - I was there the day the Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen sketch was mashed up with OS Wars! Those were the days , alright . . .

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A real hub for the community

    The homeless will be happy. They're probably poor enough to give a toss about Microsoft

  24. IGnatius T Foobar

    all Microsoft stores are losing money

    These stores are just a "meeee tooooo" play by micro$oft. They aren't actually making any money. What are you going to go in there and buy? A windows phone? A broken Surface? The stores are a loss leader to keep micro$oft relevant in the eyes of consumers.

    The truth is that to most consumers, micro$oft is the company that makes Windows, Office, and Xbox, and they're not really much of an interesting consumer brand.

  25. whoseyourdaddy

    So you can compare crowds between them?

    About 4 or 5 years ago, there's a shopping center on the north end of Seattle that may have the first Microsoft store, to great fanfare. But, after the live band went away, it's an X-box and Surface store.

    I care about neither.

    Still had to mail-order that box of MS-SQL developer...

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