It seemed to work for Apple, so why not create a Microsoft store? According to Fudzilla, some of their Microsoft sources 'confirmed that the company wants to reach out for the retail market presence'. By this, they mean they want to have many retail shops that sell only Microsoft products. The details of how far out this will extend (PCs? Windows Mobile Phones? Or purely Microsoft branded equipment and software?) are not yet available.
While yes, Apple did it first, and seem to have become rather successful in doing so (it's hard to deny NOT wanting to walk into the Apple store when you pass it!), Microsoft seems to have finally noticed it. This should be nice on many levels for consumers, depending how far Microsoft takes it. If they can extend service and support like the Genius Bar at Apple stores, it might be the guiding hand customers have been looking for that have been put off by bad Windows Vista press. Or at least, help support people running Windows on Macs!
Link: Fudzilla
While yes, Apple did it first, and seem to have become rather successful in doing so (it's hard to deny NOT wanting to walk into the Apple store when you pass it!), Microsoft seems to have finally noticed it. This should be nice on many levels for consumers, depending how far Microsoft takes it. If they can extend service and support like the Genius Bar at Apple stores, it might be the guiding hand customers have been looking for that have been put off by bad Windows Vista press. Or at least, help support people running Windows on Macs!
Link: Fudzilla
I think they are a fantastic company but they don't have the slick polished look of Apple.
In orther words, DON'T DO IT MICROSOFT!!!
It's a great idea. Dooo itttt! Dooo itttt!
Yeah, stores like the Sony Store ripped off Apple's idea...
Yeah, stores like the Sony Store ripped off Apple's idea...
No but Apple was the first software company to start its own store. Sony is different they are more hardware than software. And Microsoft is much more software based than anything else.
Yeah, stores like the Sony Store ripped off Apple's idea...
No but Apple was the first software company to start its own store. Sony is different they are more hardware than software. And Microsoft is much more software based than anything else.
That is like saying IBM is not a software company. Or saying that Microsoft is not a hardware company. Both of which, actually are.
Apple has been developing operating systems for personal computers for a couple of decades now. They also develop operating systems for phones and multi-media devices. They developed and maintain a web browser. They developed and maintain a multi-media player.
They developed applications that allow you to organize your digital photos, make movies, create web sites, and burn discs. They developed a word processor, spreadsheet program and presentation application.
This is only a current list...they developed other software products in the past that are no longer being produced.
In other words, Apple is as much of a software company as Microsoft is.
Yeah, stores like the Sony Store ripped off Apple's idea...
No but Apple was the first software company to start its own store. Sony is different they are more hardware than software. And Microsoft is much more software based than anything else.
Exactly what I was going to say, Apple is first and foremost a hardware company. Microsoft is a software company who usually release some hardware just like apple releasing some software.
I think it's a great idea, going to a Microsoft store where you can not only get the next version of vista but 360's games and accessories, Zune and all other stuff.
As long as everything is in working order, it would be a hit.
Fair enough. I was thinking more along the lines of companies starting stores selling their own products and nothing else.
In any case, the OP's being just plain arse ignorant for playing the copycat game on anything MS. These people strike me as the type who'd call bloody murder over Microsoft adding a Web 2.0-style reflection on their logo.
edit: oops, not OP. 1.2. My bad.
Last edited by rm20010 on 15 Apr 2008 - 08:31
Yeah, stores like the Sony Store ripped off Apple's idea...
No but Apple was the first software company to start its own store. Sony is different they are more hardware than software. And Microsoft is much more software based than anything else.
apple had to open their own stores... no retail stores wanted them...
Wow, thats very personal, do you have issues?
I think they are a fantastic company but they don't have the slick polished look of Apple.
In orther words, DON'T DO IT MICROSOFT!!!
Please explain "slick polished look"
It's a great idea. Dooo itttt! Dooo itttt!
Umm, in a word, no.
Remember that retail stores employ salespeople, which never guarantees any sort of technical competence. They might make some sort of MCP certification a requirement for employment, but those in the field put very little value on those type of certifications.
And ultimately, they're still going to sell the exact same products available everywhere else.
I swear - you probably need to prove you know the simplest stuff before you go around telling everyone about your degree!
I swear - you probably need to prove you know the simplest stuff before you go around telling everyone about your degree!
I'm sorry, but I don't have time to go around correcting other's mistakes. Why do you? Mistakes happen, who cares! Not everyone has time to sit here spell and grammer checking everything they type that is not worth anything to themselves... a comment to me is just a thought out loud, work is more important and demands more time and checking... this is a forum... who cares if you make a mistake.... spelling has NOTHING to do with a degree in an unrelated field... and it was just a typing mistake, you don't make friends by picking on other's mistakes
its popular because its the only place to really find that stuff
since you can make a windows machine from pretty much any PC compatible hardware
it wouldnt be worth it to make a specialty store for just microsoft
Last edited by X'tyfe on 14 Apr 2008 - 21:16
How many are there?
1. Mac Mini
2.iMac
3.Mac Pro
4.Mac book
5.MBA
6.MBP
I've seen them all in Fry's and Best buy. What more do you want?
How many are there?
1. Mac Mini
2.iMac
3.Mac Pro
4.Mac book
5.MBA
6.MBP
I've seen them all in Fry's and Best buy. What more do you want?
Only a handful of Best Buy stores carry Apple PCs - the BB near me only has a few Apple accessories (KB, mice, Airport Express). It makes since for Apple to do stores, as they can sell the whole "Apple" experience.
I honestly can't think of a good reason for Microsoft to do their own stores; Windows, Office, WHS, Zune, Pocket PC, MS accessories, and some select computers perhaps. Most of that stuff I can already find at most electronics retailers.
Meh. The only thing I could see them possibly doing well, is to offer really good Windows/Office techs.
All the BBs I've been to in Sacramento and the surrounding area carry them. I'm not sure about the rest of the country. I also think it makes sense for Apple to do their stores.
I think MS would do just fine having a retail store. Besides Windows and Office sales/support, they could show off their smart phone, the X box, their games etc. I'm curious as to what it would look like and how the products are setup.
What you going to do next create your own laptop OEM and make windows only work on that
"Well you know... I was thinking about opening a restaurant but someone already did it. Might as well not do anything."
But do some reading before posting. Microsoft is a software company. Game consoles and peripherals are the only hardware they do.
What you going to do next create your own laptop OEM and make windows only work on that
So you joined neowin.net to troll huh? Well have fun before you get banned.
Microsoft is a computer technology corporation. They stopped being solely a software company many many years ago (please do some reading before posting). If they wanted to produce and sell full computers I'm sure the fact that a bunch of people online who keep touting how "Microsoft is a software company" isn't going to hold them back.
This is not the first time you've failed to comprehend my post before replying to it.
Microsoft is primarily a software company whether you grasp that or not won't change that. If you don't agree, read up on their Annual Report.
Last edited by C_Guy on 14 Apr 2008 - 22:35
Microsoft is a computer technology corporation. They stopped being solely a software company many many years ago (please do some reading before posting). If they wanted to produce and sell full computers I'm sure the fact that a bunch of people online who keep touting how "Microsoft is a software company" isn't going to hold them back.
I have a question. Is Apple a hardware or software company? I've heard two different from Jobs AND Woz. So you tell me, which is it?
Actually it's the easiest thing in the world. Who wrote this, Apple?
Last edited by SkyyPunk on 14 Apr 2008 - 23:28
The one they got in best buy sucks. It's just a big black box with an lcd and a dest with iMacs and Macbooks. I do Like that 24" iMac very nice.
I'd totally send people to the MS store if they had sales and stuff. And of course I'd frequent it myself. It would be cool if they had a coffee bar and a corner for developers to code together.
How long was it before they threw you out?
This is why a Microsoft store would fail. Their clientele expects sales and will only go there for bargains.
This is why a Microsoft store would fail. Their clientele expects sales and will only go there for bargains.
I think being cheap is better than being an elitist snob.
Yeah great. I'm sure that will be a huge consolation to MS when they see their stores losing money.
Anyway, if this rumour is true, I've got a message for Microsoft: Please build a store in Plymouth!!!
With the troll comment out of the way....i think everyones missed the point that i doubt this is true for the simple reason that going on their track record (especially of late) the last thing they would want is a storefront where people can gather to complain about their products. Imagine if they had opened a store before Vista came out, it would now be jam packed with disgruntled (and quite rightly so) customers.
Imagine working at a Microsoft store, you'd have to have exceptionally thick skin, a lifetimes worth of therapy and a healthy supply of prozac......
This has to be pure rumour mongering by someone with not very much to do.
No sane organisation with such a bad track record with delivering products that fail to deliver would consider store frontage.
Use Surface Tables to sell stuff
Sell Macs with Windows pre-installed
Sell from most of the OEMs
Sell computer parts to make computers - but only stuff with good drivers
Sell 64-bit and touch computing more then others will
Sell Games (such as Games for Windows games, and Xbox games) alongside MS software
Not be asshats with their sales reps like most computer stores are
Windows Phones
Windows PDAs
XBOX 360s
XBOX 360 Games
XBOX Live
XBOX 360 Peripherals
Zunes
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows Server
Microsoft Office
Visual Studio
Games for Windows
Not to mention if they can get tech support and decent Microsoft reps then the store could go really well. I see nothing but good coming from this.
It is indeed hard to deny not wanting to walk in, because I have never wanted to step foot in an Apple store, and freely admit it.
Anyways to finish - people please stop being superficial muppets of the media. 2 things about the media ive noticed lately, very left wing, very supportive of a selected few corporate giants and they will stop at nothing until you are too. Say no to monopolies that really give nothing back.
First of all, Windows was not built from scratch by MS, at least not originally. They bought what was more or less a version of DOS for $50,000. They then stole the idea for a GUI from Apple, who themselves stole the idea from Xerox. Second of all, Apple did not "steal" Darwin, as it's open source, and Apple kept it open source. Yes, the pretty GUI is behind closed doors, but what really runs the system is easily available. Apple is giving back as much as it took, imo, although I (like many others) would like OS X without buying a Mac. Different story for a different time.
Alright, desktop search was not their idea, I will give you that, although the idea of instant desktop search ahd been around before those Longhorn builds. However, Mac OS X heavily used transparency in its original version, back in 2000, and it's not the transparency that matters anyway, it's the graphics accelerated interface that is simply a better way to draw the windows anyway.
Multi touch, however, has not been readily available for a while.
Last I checked, Xcode shipped as a full version with OS X, while Microsoft offered a "lite" development environment for free, requiring you to pay for more features.
Steve Ballmer is like Microsoft's Steve Jobs for criticism. He's easily made more ******** comments than Steve Jobs. Bill Gates is a good guy, however.
I'll let you make your own decisions, but please back them up with some facts.
Oh another thing apple is very unlikely to release OSX for general PCs because you think Vista is incompatible wait till you see an OS that has a small subset of hardware usually designed for it run on machines with enumerable hardware configurations. Apple would be out of business from bad press in a week.
Rebutting comments made from top to bottom:
Fact or subjective observation?
A good deal of, say, Vista wasn't originally written by MS. Windows Defender was snapped up from GIANT Antispyware. The defragger came from Executive Software (now Diskeeper Corp.). The disk management tool came from VERITAS, now part of Symantec. And so on.
It's no surprise both companies buy up software to add to their OS, like Apple buying (forgot the name)'s media player and molded it into iTunes. At the end of the day their end users won't care where the software came from.
A good reason why iTunes snapped up the marketshare it did: It made sure syncing music was simple. It made it easy for people to get music. The whole point: all in one integration = win. Sure, there was WMP back then, or those wide variety of jukeboxes that had a hundred different ways of connecting your music player to your PC and syncing music...
Actually in response to most of your comments: some people buy into Apple on hype, but some also do because somehow they have designers who pay attention to how simple it is to do X and Y. Ergonomics, human factors, that stuff.
Comments about Bill Gates: as a person, yes he's a good humanitarian. Business wise, he ranks just about there with Jobs. Ruthless and a son of a bitch to their competitors they swallowed in the past. Any playing nice between these two on television is just PR.
About Apple and Open Source: Webkit and KHTML. Enough said. Direct yourself to Webkit's progress in passing Acid3 for more details.
Advertising: Yeah, it still sucks. I'll agree with you there, minus equating supporters of these ads to our genitals. But to be fair, MS does do this on a smaller scale by attacking Linux with those newspaper ads on this site.
This post was written by a Windows and whitebox/custombox PC user of nine years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrbx9_AY720
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caVhBCsZqr0
storewide.
But in all honesty I like the idea they can make it work. I just think it'll be funny to compare it to an apple store with the amount of crashes!
this community seems pretty obsessed with Apple and Trolls
why does Apple have to be the center point of all discussions ?
anyway.. i WOULD go in & check it out if they made one
and that says a lot cause im kinda of a M$ hater.
and NO i've never been in an apple store nor will i EVER.
i have no interest in apple products or services in any way shape or form.
Listening to their customers rhetoric is far more amusing than their products
Damn that would be gold.
-prays-
Microsoft products are already sold everywhere including Wal-Mart. In order for Microsoft to make money, they have to compete with Wal-Mart. If they plan to make money by selling their products that's going to be very difficult. They would have to offer lower prices than Wal-Mart and that would be pointless because they would be competing against themselves. Their competitors have no problem making no profit on some items (like Microsoft products) as long as they are making it back on other products. That's difficult to compete with. Wal-Mart and Best Buy put a lot of record stores out of business this way.
They could use the stores for technical support but that would cost WAY more than their current tech support system and would just be a money losing proposition.
It seems like all of the Apple haters here have trouble thinking from a business standpoint about this.
This is a stupid statement. If Microsoft is selling to Wal-Mart in the first place to put their product on the shelves, dont you think Microsoft can sell their product cheaper and avoid the middle man (Wal-Mart) with no markup?
No - I dont think Microsoft stores are going to pop up every 2 miles from each other. It would be a niche store
Wal-Mart would still have their reign as probably most people would go "We could drive 40 miles to MS Store or 1 block to Wal-Mart..hmmm?"
Can you get Tech Support in an Apple store? I personally dont know but it sounds like your saying Apple Tech Support is cheaper in their stores than on-line/over-the-phone
Yes - Buying direct from the source/outlet is more expensive than buying from a middle-man. Business 101
Last edited by atari800 on 15 Apr 2008 - 13:20
I beg to differ. So you think a Microsoft owned store, which costs rent and has employees that have to be paid does not add anything to the cost of the products inside the store? Are you aware that since Wal-Mart sells thousands of products that they could sell software as a loss leader with essentially no profit? Compare the overhead cost of a single product in a Wal-Mart store to a theoretical Microsoft store. there is a big difference. Apple doesn't sell its products at Wal-Mart so it doesn't have to worry about this.
Wal-Mart would still have their reign as probably most people would go "We could drive 40 miles to MS Store or 1 block to Wal-Mart..hmmm?"
My assertion is that these stores will not make money. Your statement does not in any way reinforce your assertion that they will make money.
Yes, Apple stores do have tech support and it does not directly make money for them. Same with Microsoft. So, the assertion still stands that Microsoft stores will be as successful as Gateway stores were (hint: they lost money and were all closed).
Last edited by Daffy_Duck on 15 Apr 2008 - 16:35
Regardless of the brand name - NO ONE would buy a $3000 laptop at Wal-Mart. I guess I shouldnt say that
*apple makes money off of hardware for sure
If MS did open up a store .. IF .. I would think it would be an a few places like Apple Stores are. Not saying directly across the walkway from them but as scattered as they are.
Put it this way.. Nintendo and Sony were in the Video Game market...pretty dominant players... Along come MS and creates Xbox. Now they are a big player. Do you think this effected the company as in branching out?
Ipod and other MP3 player/portable music devices came...MS makes a Zune.. Zune might not be the "Must Have" device out there but did MS not compete in this arena too?
*You can buy Ipod stuff at Wal-mart I bet - they sell them at Sams club
MS gets in cahoots with NBC to do a news channel - MSNBC.... did this effect MS or CNN for that matter?
As far as technical support goes... ok maybe regular people will walk in and ask for support . But not someone incharge of an IT department.
*Tech support at a store is irrelevant to this conversation
Bottom line:
If Microsoft opens a store it is not going to cause mass chaos with Walmart or Office Depot or Circuit City. If anyone of these places right now were dominant in selling MS products, then the others couldnt compete according to how I am reading you.
If MS can create a copy of Vista with packaging and whatever for $30 in materials... Sells WalMart a copy for $100 and WalMart sells it for $150 which is cheaper than Circuit City which sells same product for $175. MS could sell it for $160 because it is in their store - captive audience.
Ever buy a Disney t-shirt at Disney World? Like $50. Cheaper if you go to the mall and pay $15...but your at Disney at the time.
True ; Gateway store did close up shop. Did they do this because Dell didnt open up shop and just had kiosks and commercials pointing to dell.com?
Gateways demise in retail stores doesnt have anything to do with this topic of the rumor of MS opening a store.
"If" they open a store.... I hope they make an antidote for the Mac commercials.
Last edited by atari800 on 16 Apr 2008 - 00:41
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.