The Microsoft PR team tweeted out first image to Twitpic of the Microsoft Retail Store that are opening sometime in the fall, in Scottsdale and Mission Viejo with several stores that are slated to open with more locations opening later. In July, Microsoft’s master plan for the retail stores was leaked in a presentation.
Microsoft’s company store on their corporate campus is a full store of Microsoft products where you can buy almost anything but a computer. The products on display are boxed copies of all their operating systems and software including, Xbox 360 bundles, games and accessories; keyboards, mice, joysticks, webcams and all that other stuff from Microsoft Hardware. There are also Zunes and Zune accessories along with T-shirts, backpacks, bags, pens and other Microsoft-brand personal accessories.
I don’t see why Microsoft does not sell computers and provide in-person support for Microsoft products like Apple does at its stores. The store doesn’t have to turn a profit, and if it’s not turning a profit it could be just be an expensive PR stunt. There is simply no way they can make near the money Apple is making at their stores, globally. They simply don’t have enough products to sell that will be in demand where it couldn’t be bought somewhere else, probably for less.
Apple built their stores to make money when they saw they couldn’t control how their products were being sold so they created their own stores (with big ticket items to sell to add profit) to control the brand and experience. There appears to be a lack of consistency among Microsoft’s various product lines which is probably true since they are all designed to be more unique which is a bad idea. However, I don’t think so especially, when you do look at the fact that Microsoft did try previously to emphasize the Microsoft and Windows connection and it wasn’t particularly a good thing.
I think the point was more that Microsoft’s several product lines do not have much of a unifying identity (Bing, Zune and Xbox 360 all have very different and unique identities)except, perhaps for Windows and Office, which do use similar fonts and color schemes and logo concepts as well. I find it slightly jarring to see these logos displayed as though they are similar when they share completely different font faces, colors and logos.
