Microsoft Branded Stores – Long On Looks, Short On Substance

Everyone I know has been wondering how successful the new Microsoft branded stores would be, and if they might offer a place to gain insight on products that are new, or have not been fully investigated by the computer press.

I know I did not hold out much hope, but I did think it might be a nice place to look at some examples of Microsoft hardware (I’ve said it before, I am a long time fan of Microsoft hardware, going back to paying way too much for 3 dove bar bus mice, because they were great and allowed me to have both COM 1 and COM 2 using different interrupts, while the mouse used IRQ 2/9.)

I have seen accounts of the interiors of the stores, and that the one nice feature of the computers sold through those venues had no trial versions or other crapware installed. Yet no one is letting us know what the cost of that might be – I hardly think that doing a compare of a PC at the Microsoft store in Mission Viejo, and then driving to the Fry’s in Anaheim, I will be impressed by the price tags at the Microsoft store.  Yet I need not become upset by this, one must pay something for extra service, or increased choice. Surely that is one reason why the stores might survive.

On the other hand, if a person is travelling to the Microsoft store to acquire knowledge not available elsewhere, this story in PC World lets us all know we are going to be sorely disappointed.

I also heard from a reader known only as “John,” who says he paid a visit to the newly opened Microsoft Store in Scottsdale, Ariz. Here’s his report:

It looks like an Apple store on steroids and I already knew inside Windows 7 was going to be more like a new dress on a homely woman. The only differences I could read about online seemed to be cosmetic.

Don’t go to their new stores expecting to talk to anyone who know more about Windows than you do. I had to be passed off to 4 different employees, they called it escalating, before I was able to talk to someone who could tell me if Windows 7 still used a “registry”, and it does. The same old house of cards is still the basis for the “new” OS.

He says it took him more than an hour to upgrade his 3-year-old ThinkPad, and now he’s decided to switch to a MacBook Pro. (Hey, maybe Apple will feature him in a commercial.)

Having never visited an Apple store, I would not know, but I would have thought that Microsoft would have hired tech savvy collegiate types to be able to ’spread the Microsoft religion’ and answer many of the questions from easy to mid range difficulty. (I know that is how I would do it. And the escalation would be to tech support located in Redmond, available immediately, without wait – but that’s me, Microsoft has not asked my opinion!)

Though I’m sure the Microsoft stores are there to keep the name in the public eye, Microsoft could do so much better. It could be a place of sales, repair, education, and evangelism, all rolled into a few hundred square feet – but again, just my opinion.

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Tags: Microsoft Microsoft branded stores sales support Windows 7 Microsoft hardware evangelism education

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