Microsoft goes retail with own shops

Forward thinking

Another entirely original idea from MICROSOFT!

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?

interesting.

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

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?

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.

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.

Oh I get it!

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

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.

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.)

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.

@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?

Line for Zune's starts here

Surely Zunes?

First rule of shopkeeping

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

So when the stores are closed...

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

Yeah, sorry... couldn't resist.

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.

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.

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?

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.:-)

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

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.

@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.

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.

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.

@"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.

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.

Windows to the soul

Will it be like this? XD

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

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.