back to article Microsoft goes retail with own shops

Microsoft is following Apple's lead by opening its own retail stores. The software giant has named David Porter as corporate vice president of retail stores, whose first order of business will be to define locations, time frames, and specifics for a series of Microsoft-branded retail stores. Porter was head of worldwide …

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  1. Dave

    Authentic Windows Experience

    On entering the store you have to wade through waist-deep treacle, so everything takes place at a slower speed than it really needs to. To keep yourself clean, you can buy something that resembles a giant condom, although that will cause you to move even slower. Your shopping basket is several times bigger than it really needs to be for the amount of shopping you expect to do, the handles are underneath but it has lots of extra cool features that make it heavier and bigger, but are otherwise of no use to most shoppers. At the checkout you get to pay for a copy of Windows even if you didn't want to buy one.

  2. Dana W
    Jobs Halo

    Forward thinking

    Another entirely original idea from MICROSOFT!

  3. Heff
    Stop

    What the Bejesus?

    practically cut-n-paste from previous commentary on microsofts "app store";

    "Remember the days where Microsoft made operating systems? I mean, as opposed to today, where MS tries to out-google google, and now, apparently attempts to out-perform apple in the downloadable apps store section of the marketplace.

    Dear Microsoft.

    You've shown, over recent years, with your titanic bungling of hotmail, your extremely ill-advised ploughing of cash into Live! rebranding and search functionality, that at best you're a little schizophrenic at redmond. at worse, with your atrocious support standards for GamesForWindowsLive, and product crossover from Xbox to PC, that you cant even have 2 departments within the same building talk to each other."

    ...And now, fresh material!;

    And now bricks-and mortar, too? What are you going to sell? Home consumers get their OS from Dell, with a new machine. You're going to sell what? Zunes? To who? the existing 3 zune customers already have theirs, and are probably very happy with them unless they bought a 30gig brick. you'll sell copies of Office, maybe? because home users upgrade this often, I hear. they dont just go with whatever was packed from their OEM.

    So, people wont buy your operating system they'll buy it from Dell, probably cheaper than getting it direct from you. Or office. or fucking Zunes. I doubt you're planning highstreet stores to sell MSSQL server to joe-6-pack.

    So it must be... um, what else.

    Support! You'll sell support to people, right? you know,establishing new stores, hiring a bunch of windows fanboys* to staff them, nice, knowledgable people, right? and then you'll launch windows 7. and these fresh faced peeps are gonna handle the unwashed masses who arent happy windows 7 doesnt work right.

    You're... well, brave isnt the word, is it?

    *you know, like the apple fanboys. there are windows fanboys, right? ...hello?

  4. Rafael Illan
    Gates Horns

    interesting.

    socan we get support for the 360 in the support Area?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good idea

    I like this, now MS can have a shop, just as Apple, and everyone else can be free to install what they like on their computers.

    MS is a big brand, trusted by many a numpty. It could just work.

    They should make an MS computer as well, go up market MS, screw the masses, so no change there :).

    Now if only Ubuntu would open a series of shops. Damn, that is what they should have done, they should have said to the community you guys build a smoother desktop, and they will open up a chain of shops, that probably would have worked, given a discount on the hardware for those who contributed to the smoother desktop. Might still be time.

  6. J
    Paris Hilton

    Weird

    So, they will be selling PCs, boxes of software, Zunes and Xboxes, is that it? The article does not specify, but suggests so. They will be selling what everybody else does already. What would make one go to the MS store instead of any other? I don't see what.

    Does not sound like a very good idea, but then again who am I to know?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And the PC hardware will be . . .

    . . . I don't know!

    Showing Windows or Office without a PC would be pointless (the reason for walking into a store is so that you can see the product!).

    The Microsoft ecosystem is based on NOT aligning with any specific PC hardware vendor. So will the store use Dell, HP, Toshiba, Sony - what is it?

    Apple stores work because Apple sells the hardware. Less choice and higher price, sure - but it's very well suited to a retail outlet.

  8. Sonya Fox

    Microsoft Wal-Mart?

    If they're trying to compete with Apple's high-end boutique stores, I don't think hiring a guy from Wal-Mart will work. Wal-Mart's people know how to rake in tons of cash, but they do it by catering to the lowest common denominator. Considering how hard they've been pushing Vista, it's kind of ironic that Microsoft hired a guy from a store chain that makes most of its computer sales from low-end netbooks and sub-desktops running WinXP. Go figure.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Who's smoking the wacky cracky pipe in Redmond?

    Who's smoking the wacky cracky pipe in Redmond?

    Lets see...

    Apple makes money from hardware, not software. They make computer case designs and market them like mad to create lustful desires among consumers and consumers want the products enough to go out of their way to track down an Apple store and drive to it just to experience the shopping experience.

    Microsoft makes no hardware on the desktop/laptop side of an Apple Store, and the Zune on the iPod side of an Apple store. Most PC gear is cheap, plastic and/or chromed plastic, creaks, groans, feels not so solid in the hands let alone flexing it with any force to garner its usefulness as a portable item that won't let you down a year after purchasing at the counter. The consumer is already 20+ mind programmed that all PC salespeople are paid minimum wage, no nothing and will tell you anything even if not entirely true to make the sale and get another tick on the long list to getting a sales commission bonus end of month...

    Someone pass the pipe because it must be a lovely world to live in.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Surprise

    Who knows, they might end up selling their own branded PCs. If they can "make" an XBOX360 which is base on PC technology then why not? It won't be cheap - you know, Core i7, 4870 Graphics card, Two Raid0 disks - the PC they sell will be very fast to show off Vista Ultimate. Unlike a Mac, it might even have a Blu-Ray player.

    No one knows what their plans are. They might surprise everyone. Remember, they are VERY cash rich (because they didn't buy Yahoo!).

  11. /\/\j17

    Bad timing you say?

    "While potentially justified, the timing will be questioned. Setting up a retail operation is expensive and the plan comes at a time when Microsoft is trying to cut costs. The high street, meanwhile, is suffering as consumers cut spending to ride out the recession."

    Alternativly the timing could be commended - you should be able to get some really good deals on retail space at the moment. It's not like people are queuing up to take it over and doing a bargin deal with an established company, keep at least SOME money coming in is going to be an attractive proposition.

  12. Smallbrainfield

    All the comments so far forget that Microsoft does

    have one bit of popular hardware to base it's stores around, namely the X-Box. I reckon they'll base their stores largely around that, the games and accessories.

    If they are going to sell PC hardware, they already have branded mice and keyboards. They'll probably push high end Dell/Sony/HP machines to show off their products.

  13. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Finally

    There is finally going to be a brick-and-mortar place where I can go throw a rock in the window when I'm over-exasperated with how Windows works - or doesn't, as may be case.

  14. Nomen Publicus

    Branding?

    Are we going to finally see Microsoft branded PCs and laptops?

  15. Barry Tabrah
    Happy

    Let the jokes begin

    It'll take 5 minutes to get into the store. Upon entering the store you will be handed 20lb of Microsoft merchandise but no bag to carry it in. You may be thrown out of the store at any point with no warning. You will be hounded by sales staff asking you if you are sure you wish to browse this shelf.

    And then there's always the risk of counterfeit Microsoft Stores. Happy days.

  16. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Thumb Up

    Oh I get it!

    That's what the old Woolies and Poundstretcher shops are being rebranded to!

  17. Allan Rutland
    Thumb Down

    Won't work

    Quiet simply it won't work as they aren't as much the bunch the bastards are screwing those who support them. MS will stick to there SRP prices in the shops, and not go out to compete against all the myriad of other shops and online places. One of the reason Apples shops work is they match Apples online prices. And the prices Apple charges those in the channel are such that they can't match the shops or Apple themselves online.

    So no, it's a nice place to demo tech, but to actually sell things. It's futile.

  18. Magnus Ramage
    Unhappy

    Manufacturer-only stores pointless

    I've never been to an Apple store, and never seen the point. If I want an Apple product that I can touch before I buy it, I can go to a general retailer (John Lewis, say) where I'm not tied in to a particular manufacturer and can compare it with other manufacturers' models. And of course if I don't want to touch it I can buy it online. The same would be true for a Microsoft store (and worse for them as others have observed). Seems entirely pointless.

    Apple aren't the only manufacturer with their own stores, mind you - Sony and Panasonic have them too, and so do various other firms if you widen the scope a little (Disney, for instance). They all seem unnecessary to me - why would any shopper want to deliberately reduce the scope of manufacturers they can buy products from? (One exception: the Lego store at Legoland Windsor, said to have the best collection in the UK; but that's within a very specialised environment, and only much use if you're there with small children.)

  19. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Happy

    You forgot the range of M$ peripherals.

    As well as the Xbox and the software, M$ also make a range of mice and keyboards which seem to enjoy good sales even though they are sold at a premium over other vendors' peripherals in the high-street stores. Maybe M$ has a plan to expand that range, so as well as mice and keyboards there will be other products such as M$ smart wireless printers, M$ badged DVD drives, maybe an M$ home NAS - if the numpties will pay £50+ for an M$ mouse then you can sell them anything! All M$ has to do is maintain the high standard they have demonstrated with their mice and keyboards and it could be a goer.

    Of course, the other option is M$ use their Wal Mart links to create an M$ franchise in every Wal Mart, that would cut the costs of the exercise and put them closer to the unwashed masses in just about every town in the US.

  20. andy gibson

    At least it gives us

    a human face to rant off at when we have problems.

  21. Luther Blissett

    The Hand works in mysterious ways

    Just as the malls are dying all over the developed world, and the commercial property market threatens to go the way of sub-prime numbers, Here Comes the Knight to the rescue!

    All it needs now is the nod from Santa Obama, and even Charlie Brown here in Lalaland will will feel the tension in the leash. Re-lease to re-lease! Now we can all buy our Bill Glasses, cut-out and keep cut-outs of Bill, copy chairs of all the ones that Ballmer balled, M$ dartboards, etc etc.

    With some invisible guiding Hand, the billion$ secreted away in Seattle will sea the light of day. Ah, sweet redistribution!

  22. Robin
    Happy

    @Dave re: Authentic Windows Experience

    Excellent, can we have another one like this predicting the experience in other such outlets, such as a Linux shop where you have to assemble and fit the door before you can go in or something? Or an Apple shop where you pay over the odds for stuff that looks great?

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Line for Zune's starts here

    Surely Zunes?

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    First rule of shopkeeping

    Fill your shop with shit that people might want to buy.

  25. Dave
    Joke

    So when the stores are closed...

    ...will they pull down the blue screens of death over the windows??! ;)

    Yeah, sorry... couldn't resist.

  26. Paul
    Linux

    curious decision

    bricks-and-mortar retailers in the UK and USA are scrabbling to get their online operations as good as possible, while the high street will go quieter (and maybe have a rent crash, which means that one day we might see a few more interesting, non-multiple stores returning). IMRG and other analysts come up with figs around 30 per cent for the increases in online sales for the last couple of Christmases. so why bother, especially if you don't make hardware for people to carry away - instead establish a well-marketed online retail presence and leave it at that. i'm puzzled.

  27. Robert Moore
    Jobs Halo

    Oh this will work.

    Another Microsoft innovation "borrowed" from Apple. Lets see how well they cock this one up.

    Thanks in advance for the laughs Microsoft.

  28. Robert E A Harvey
    Gates Horns

    All been said

    I can't offer any better insight into this lunacy than the comments already offered.

    Except when the Disney store opened in Peterborough I thought 'What? what on earth do disney have to sell?' but they made it work by selling crap.

    Maybe that is the business model?

  29. Michael
    Happy

    Who will be their market?

    I think it's going to break into two distinct stereotypes...sorry, personality profiles.

    1. Business users. (Clicky-clacky Gordon Gecko-wannabes with power braces sports car trophy wife who need the latest hardware and software to impress their colleagues, cos they dont really have mates.)

    2. Chavs (High end graphics cards requirement ....also, a suitable environment to....(cough!) .acquire....new games/hardware.)

    I have a really good warm fuzzy feeling about Microsoft's current plans.:-)

  30. David Donley
    Linux

    Happy Days !!!

    Hopefully one will open in my local area, I live miles and miles away from anything like PC World.

    If the Microsoft shop opens near me, I will be able to go in and get some hands on experience with one of them Netbooks, like the Aspire One with Linpus Linux, or that Dell Netbook with Ubuntu.

    I will be able to see if I prefer it with XFCE or with Gnome

    I will be able to see if I prefer it with SSD or HDD

    wait a second........ Microsoft shop you said ? Damn

  31. Steve McPolin
    Gates Horns

    Chigger bites

    Will ebaum have to come up with a BillMart Bingo card? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but having the trailer park boys dream up a knock off... Watch for the next mac vs pc ad to have pc scratching himself all over.

  32. sleepy

    PC World reborn?

    Microsoft clearly believes a lousy PC retail experience must not be allowed to die with the recession. I expect Dixons group has already been on the phone to MS to see which store leases they'd be willing to take over.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And the slogan shall be "Where do you want to go today?"

    accompanied by pictures of children gaily skipping towards a lifetime of Office servitude purchased from a building constructed from what looks suspiciously like unsold Zunes.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @A/C

    Now if only Ubuntu would open a series of shops.

    yeah like people are going to pop in and buy copies of free software.

    Just how are these staff, rent and utlility bills going to be paid by something that is free?

    I'm struggling to understand your business model.

    Linux knob. "Hello, I'd like to open a store please"

    Bank mismanager "Sure what are you outgoings"

    linux knob "About 250k / year"

    Bank mismanager "And your expected turnover?"

    Linux Knob "0 "

    Bank mismanager, "close the door behind you"

    Stick to coding in your bedroom, don't think you're ready for the world outside yet.

  35. Giles Jones Gold badge

    Hmm

    They're not exactly big in consumer electronics. Zune and XBox range is largely all they have.

    Microsoft can't produce their own brand PC as that would upset OEMs and government regulators.

    What will it sell? if Microsoft carefully select specific PC hardware to sell then that will upset other makers who didn't get selected.

  36. gribbler
    Thumb Up

    You people are all so cynical...

    I really think that this is a good idea. I like to take the piss out of MS as much as the next person, but that doesn't stop me from using their products every day. After all, Windows is still better than any free alternatives and I refuse to pay £10,000 for an Apple (perhaps a slight over-exaggeration but they ARE ridiculously overpriced).

    MS Office is by far and away the best productivity suite on the market. My company recently conducted a trial of alternative office products and they were terrible.

    I know I couldn't live without my (modified) X-Box and 360 or my Hotmail account.

    What MS really need is to improve their image and what better way than to take the fight directly to Apple. In my opinion (which I am not trying to force on to any of you) MS makes far superior products to Apple. As far as I can tell, Apple does a really good job of punting seriously overpriced stuff at you and making you buy it through an impressive advertising campaign that makes it 'cool'.

    MS needs to bring some appeal back to its brand and this could give them a chance.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Stupid move

    So are they opening retail stores or copying Apple? Apple HAD to make their stores all pretty and expensive and branded BECAUSE THEY HAD SO FEW OUTLETS!

    On the other hand Microsoft had tens of thousands of outlets everywhere.

    So all they'll do is piss off their retailers and undermine their own channel to do something they don't need to do.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A shop full of Windows...boring

    "Apple, meanwhile, has peppered the globe with flagship stores that sell Macs, iPods, software, and provide customers with decent support."

    I can't see how MS are gonna be able to provide in-store technical support like Apple does as there are just too many home Windows users and many with all sorts of home PC problems. You'll end up with a queue for free technical support out of the door. Then when someone's been queueing up for 3 hours and the support guy gives a flippant answer or no answer you'll just end up with mad-as-hell customers. How is that going to work?

    No wait, it's coming.....yes they charge for technical support, say £20 per question or 15 minutes worth and you book an appointment. I can see that getting messy.

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    CyberSub

    This looks like a typo, but it is hard to tell with you guys:

    "upgrades to Winds 7 Ultimate"

  40. Danny Thompson
    Stop

    In-store Support?

    "....and provide customers with decent support"

    Is this as opposed to "... and currently provide customers with crap support"?

    Look Microsoft, if you are seriously going to try and follow the Apple store support model you have got to do yourself some very serious mystery shopping first. The Apple Genius support model is world class and sets the bar. Anyone who hasn't experienced it cannot comment with any degree of credibility.

    And so what are we to expect in the Microsoft store? When I walk in with my XP-based Netbook, because Vista is too bloated to run on current Atom-based tech, may I expect such world class support? You cannot say that it is a defunct OS because you sold it to me via the netbook's manufacturer. The entire package was a legitimate and conspired sale, not an OEM hack.

    This is where it all going to come tumbling down. MS customers are not going to think to themselves "Oooh, I don't have Windows 7 or Vista and so I cannot go into the store for support". If you are wearing the Microsoft brand, and you are claiming to offer support in store, then what you are going to get is folk walking in with XP and expecting better than to be sold the latest iteration of the OS.

    Stop = because if Microsoft don't wise up they're going to do themselves a huge disservice.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    @"Good Idea" AC

    An Ubuntu store? That'd be made of lego, k'Nex and meccano and have a combined assault course and maze between the front door and any features not immediately accessible when you get to it. You want tech support from the Ubuntu store? You go round to the "forum" area at the back where a number of random people are sat, more random people keep forcing flyers on you, you get your credit card number nicked.

    If you fought your way over there you could attempt to get the attention of someone who knows what's happenning then buy them a Java.

    On the upside, It'd be very nearly impossible to steal from it and would be utterly sterile.

    An MS store would have most things pretty easily accessible but would charge you for walking into it or sue you for looking into it to see what's going on inside. On the upside, it'd be utterly impervious to being ramraided as its windows would be treacleesque and absorb any attempt to actually do anything.

    The criminals would, however, be able to walk into one of the MS-provided gaping holes in the walls.

  42. Thomas

    The Apple store was borne out of necessity...

    ... in that circa 2001, before the iPod, nobody else really stocking Apple computers and Apple had negligible visibility on the high street. Maybe Microsoft's store is a similar tactical move - purely to reclaim consumer mindshare irrespective of potential profits and/or the ability to show much more than the Microsoft and Windows logos in their shops?

  43. TeeCee Gold badge

    Great idea.

    A large plate-glass window in every town just for lobbing RROD'd Xboxes through.

    Just what we needed. Mail in is just so impersonal and doesn't give anywhere near the satisfaction that being able to fling the sodding things in their faces will.

  44. Maliciously Crafted Packet

    Even Stork margarine...

    can't be spread more thinly than Microsoft these days.

    Microsoft should be concentrating on core competencies like Office, Exchange, Widows and the Data-centre. Their diversification attempts over the last 10 years have been bleeding money or at best made very small returns. Getting into retail is yet another diversion.

    Aside from hardware only manufactures, can anyone name a technology company that Microsoft is not competing with? Buggered if I can.

  45. Kenny Millar
    Gates Horns

    Feck sake

    Have MS never had an original idea in their life?

    I bet the shops are over complicated, over engineerd and buggy, like everything else they copy.

  46. James Le Cuirot
    Gates Horns

    Windows to the soul

    Will it be like this? XD

    http://ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20040714

  47. Ken Hagan Gold badge

    Re: And the PC hardware will be . . .

    They'll use the same hardware that the developers used to write the OS. In Fista's case, that'll be a multi-monitor setup with tiled 2k resolution panels, quad core space heaters with 16GB of RAM, and banks of solid state drives.

    Seriously, Microsoft aren't developing or selling hardware, so they are free to shop around for something that makes their software look good. Why would *any* shop exhibit its product under less than favourable conditions. Do fashion houses use ugly models? Do car ads show harrassed parents parked on the M5 with feral kids in the back seat?

  48. Kenny Millar
    Gates Horns

    BREAKING NEWS - MS TO REBRAND

    MS have today announced that they are to ditch the name 'Microsoft' with all it's negative connotations, and rebrand as 'Me 2'

    This is a wonderful bit of imagineering, as it encapsulates everything MS is knee deep in.

  49. N

    Like most things

    Microsoft can only follow Apple

    & a copy is never quite as good as the original

  50. N

    Now I understand

    Why the arch demon of Redmond was prancing around the stage shouting:

    developers

    developers

    developers

    he wanted to build some shops

  51. Red Bren
    Pirate

    Don't knock it till you've tried it

    Personally, I think this is a great idea. Imagine the convenience of buying a new PC and instantly claiming and receiving a refund for the OS and software when you decline the EULA...

  52. Chris Griffin
    Coat

    back to school

    Who is Zune? And what does he have that warrants a line?

    Mine's the one with the Dummies Guide to English Grammar in the pocket...

  53. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    This has FAIL written all over it

    AT a time when every other retailer is struggling, MS want to enter the market? Not likely.

    Paris, just because.....

  54. Peter Simpson
    Jobs Horns

    Only difference is...

    ...people actually *want* the Apple gear.

  55. g e

    Yuk

    Another highstreet establishment to avoid then, like Muck Donalds?

  56. Chris Bradshaw
    Linux

    I'll certainly go there

    to get my money back from Microsoft for the unused and unwanted copy of Windows that comes with the next PC I buy. I'll go there every day if needed, until I get it :-)

  57. Doug Glass
    Go

    Only an Idiot ...

    ... would purchase Microsoft products, at full price, from Microsoft. There are too many legitimate sellers of discounted genuine Microsoft products to be found on the internet. Uh... no...wait....over 9,000,000 machines infected with Conflicker....oh just never mind.

  58. John Styles
    Gates Halo

    Hmm

    I don't think I have been smoking more crack than usual, but I'm SURE I went into a Microsoft shop in the Sony Centre in San Francisco a few years ago.

    Actually, I didn't imagine it, here is a Microsoft press release about it

    http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/jun99/microsoftsfpr.mspx

  59. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    There's a nice little bit of bllshuit.

    "minimizing the number of end users who may postpone acquiring a new computer because of the impending release of the Windows 7 operating system."

    I haven't postponed acquiring a new computer because of the impending release of the Windows 7 operating system. I've postponed acquiring a new computer because of the current release of the Windows Vista non-operating system. Whether Windows 7 is going to work properly or not when it finally comes out is nothing to do with it.

    And in answer to those MS advocates who want to know my experience with Vista, wanting me to admit I haven't got any, well, I admit it. I haven't. What I do have are friends who've gone out and bought Vista and experienced it for me, and I am very grateful to them, as I am also grateful to those friends who got drunk and visisted tattoo parlours, and for almost exactly the same reason.

  60. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    What do they stock?

    Will you be able to get the latest Ubuntu, Mandriva etc there ?

    The public need to know

  61. Adrian Midgley

    the windows will be painted?

    Blue?

  62. Richard

    Free whitepaper: A Practical Guide To Disaster Recovery Planning

    Is the "paid for" link surrounding this article a hint to MS per chance?

    MS are good at wasting money on stuff ... let them burn more.

    I suspect the shops will get raided by Linux touting hackers who will reboot all the machines and put Hardy Heron etc on them or even better a Google OS 8-)

    To paraphrase Mr Dell .. "best thing for MS shareholders would be if they shut up shop and give all the money back" .. oh wait, he got that wrong before.

  63. N

    Oh no

    If you have a go with Office, will some one pop up and say "Hello, it looks like youre writing a letter" - would you like me to fuck it all up?

  64. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    You know

    I just want to pinch the cheeks for Ballmer and awww bless your little heart aren't you precious with all your billion of dollars. This will be another spectacular flop like the ten million dollars they spent on the recent ad campaign. It will be fun to watch it's sputtering start then finally go tits up after MS spends millions of dollars and months if not years denying it's a total disaster.

    Go because the quicker they get this off the ground the quicker the it's final destruction will be.

  65. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Halo

    Glass elevator seems a natural

    too bad it's already been done.

  66. bygjohn

    @ Manufacturer-only stores pointless

    You say you haven't visited an Apple Store. That's why you don't get it.

    The point with Apple Stores is that they don't just sell Apple kit (and a good selection of third-party accessories). They sell advice and support.

    When I bought my MacBook the sales assistant saved me £500 by persuading me I really didn't need a MacBook Pro: the MacBook would do everything I wanted. And he was right.

    Apart from knowledgeable sales staff, they offer a range of workshops and tuition ranging from free to paid (but actually very good value) packages, so people new to computers or new to particular packages or tasks can get excellent training and help. If you're having problems with your software or hardware, you can book an appointment with an expert who'll work with you to sort it out.

    So what's on sale is service as well as products, so you get the best out of your new stuff. Compared to buying a Winbox from some ignoramus in Currys it's another world. And it encourages repeat purchases as a result.

    Now, whether Microsoft can pull off a similar trick without alienating their OEM customers is a moot point. Maybe they will, but I have my doubts. Especially if the guy running the show is ex-Wal-Mart. Pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap is precisely NOT what you need to ape the success of the Apple Stores.

  67. James O'Brien
    Paris Hilton

    Line for Zunes starts here?????

    Theres a line?? Umm....lemme ask that again....theres a line?

  68. Mike Gravgaard
    Stop

    Microsoft World

    God said to Steve, you must open a store and in this store many people will come (god was talking to Steve Jobs at the time but the other Steve misheard and thought it was a great idea), This world will be called Microsoft's World.

    I think it willl be served by spotty pale teenages (like the teenager out of The Simpsons) which don't go outside. They will have a mouse and controller sections, Xbox 360 section and a Bill Gates shrine.

    The Bill Gates shrine is a tent with a hole in the floor. On entering you fall down the hole into a diamond mine with Steve Ballmer holding a bull whip shouting "Developers, developers, developers, developers" in a more dispret tone each time till the point in which he sounds quite tired and upset.

    There will be a receipt given to people on purchases but on exiting the shop, it says in very small print, please return to place of purchase - you return the next day to return the product and the teenager behind the counter tells you that the shop has moved (infact everything has moved 3cms) and technically this is a change in conditions as this is no longer the place of purchase but a completely different store.

    STOP because I think this is a great idea (it might make a share scare and I could watch them dropped off a cliff - out of curiousity, what do Microsoft put in the water??).

    Mike

  69. Al Jones
    Unhappy

    MS could use a "reboot" of it's retail presence

    A friend has a Zune. I read about the "Zune Pass", and just about every comment I could find about it was positive. So I decided to buy some pre-paid Zune Pass cards as a gift. Think I could find them anywhere? BestBuy claims to carry them, and sure enough there's a spot on the shelf in my local BestBuy marked "Zune Pass 1 month card - $14.99", but the salesperson said that they'd never received any stock, and when I checked the BestBuy website to buy online, they said that they were backordered. I spent hours on a famous search engine trying to find some other online vendor, without any luck, just more pointers to forum posts saying how good the Zune Pass is for people who listen to lots of music.

    In the end, I had to call the Zune support number, 877-getzune and ask where I can buy theses cards. After putting me on hold for a few minutes, they direct me to www.zunestore.net, where sure enough, I can order the Zune Pass prepaid card - $44.97 for a 3 month pass, plus $5 S&H (or P&P, if you prefer). Oh, and don't try to pay with your Discover card - Visa, Mastercard or Amex only. No paypal either.

    FFS - it's just a gift card! Why don't you have it prepacked in envelopes, and just print my address on it? And it's going to take 2 weeks to deliver? The freaking Postal Service will deliver it in 2 days for 41c!!!!!

    Talk about mixed messages! One the one hand I read a lot of VERY positive feedback on forums. I was actually pretty impressed by the response I got to my call to the 877 support number. But I was totally unimpressed with the actual retail experience - no stock on the shelves, and only one source online, with 1980s ideas of customer service. Not impressed!!!!

  70. Seanie Ryan
    Happy

    stocked with

    1 wall of xbox's, 1 shelf of Zunes (covered in dust) and the rest of the store filled with Microsoft Mice.

    Seriously, what PC manufacturer will be selected? They risk ticking off all the others, no?

    This is going to get very interesting... another way for MS to burn more cash and have another loss-leader.

  71. skeptical i
    Coat

    Blue Screen special in aisle 5?

    Tee-hee.

  72. gratou

    antiseptic?

    Surely you meant aseptic. Note that MS word's thesaurus gets it totally wrong in this case. Not that it is the only one.

    Antiseptic = Kills (hopefully harmful and small) organisms. [anti prefix=against]

    Aseptic= Has no (hopefully harmful and small) organisms. Sterile. By extension bland. [a prefix=without]

    Surely the stores will be bland, i.e they will offer no joy or attractiveness; hopefully they will not remove joy or attractiveness from their punters. Or wil they? :o)

  73. Al Jones
    Thumb Down

    Zune Marketplace - US only?

    I found out why they charged $5 to deliver a Zune Marketplace gift card - it was fedexed from China!!!!

    Now THAT is seriously fucked up!

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