How The Microsoft Stores Will Differ From Apple Stores

      by Wyatt Walter

In some serious Microsoft-bashing style, PCWorld had a great list of differences between the new Microsoft stores than the Apple stores. In that same spirit, I’d like to modify one slightly myself. Number two goes something like this:

The store will have six different entrances: Starter, Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. While all six doors will lead into the same store, the Ultimate door requires a fee of $100 for no apparent reason.

I would argue that each door would let you in for free, but a blockade would suddenly pop up when a customer tries to access any part of the store that was arbitrarily not available to customers from that door. Then they will require the user to pay a fee, go back out of the store and come back in the appropriate door. Okay, enough of the lighthearted bashing and let’s get serious.

My question is: Why would Microsoft try to offer the same type of store that Apple does? Microsoft isn’t a hardware maker.. Sure, they have keyboards, mice, joysticks, and mp3 players but what does going into a store offer consumers? Microsoft would either have to sign deals with a manufacturer and surely face a ton of backlash from business partners or not offer any hardware at all. At that point, the consumer would have to go to both the Microsoft store and then to a hardware store which already packages the OS with the PC. IMHO they’d be much better off placing a booth in Best Buy’s and other large stores and compete with Apple in that way. At least then consumers don’t have to go to two stores to get advice on buying a PC in a world where consumers rarely travel to one store.

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Filed under News, Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Feb 14th, 2009