Emil Protalinski for The Next Web:
Microsoft on Wednesday announced the first plans for its retail strategy in 2013. The company says it opened 51 stores this year, and it’s already revealed where it will open the first six next year.
Microsoft stores are coming to Texas, Florida, Ohio, California, Utah and Missouri. They’ll be good places to chill out if the Apple Stores nearby are too crowded for you.
IMHO Microsoft really needs a rethink.
“I give them two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake.”
No, they need to replace their top 1% management and start fresh.
Clever, but so far Microsoft doesn’t appear to be bringing in Apple-style business.
If Apple has disrupt their core business of OEM sales
than Microsoft has no choice but to build their own
machines and have their own stores.
whether it is for PC, tablets, phones and even xboxes.
I agree. It’s almost like with Windows 8 and Surface, they started to, and then somebody was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, this is way too un-Microsoft” and reversed course on some things. If they would have followed all the way through on focusing on mobile, they would have done better with Surface. I’m a Mac guy officially these days, but I really like Windows 7, and I think they could have left that completely alone as their flagship OS for the PC and focused on Windows Phone 8/RT for tablets and phones. If you’re going to copy Apple, copy Apple. MS just never seems to get it quite right.
Granted, none of this means they would have done any better, but it would have been less confusing for the average non-techie consumer and would have made a lot of current MS users a lot happier. Any PC I still use will remain on Windows 7–I will never go to an OS that was designed for both desktop and mobile. Touch does not make sense for desktop and legacy apps don’t make sense for mobile.
OK, but where are the machines?
Xbox sells in smaller quantities than iPod touch. If you add all the Xboxes, PlayStations, and Wiis together, that is fewer than iPod touch.
Windows PC’s have an average sales price of $400. There are no Windows PC’s that are equivalent to the Mac anymore. It is Windows versus iPad now. iPad is $329 and there are models with LTE and it has 750,000 apps and is 100% touch and has 10 hour battery. Microsoft has a quasi-tablet for $600 and it requires a mouse.
Microsoft has sold almost no phones, and the ones they have sold were very cheap and have awful displays, and they obsoleted them all only a year later.
Wintel systems are down 20% from last year.
What are they going to sell for the next 2 years?
I thought they should have bought Blockbuster and used their stores. Blockbuster sold for a song.
They had thousands of small, cheap stores. Customers who used to rent DVD could buy Xbox and get 10 free online rentals and now you have an online movie rental customer. Use the Blockbuster name for the Microsoft movie service. Maybe make a $99 “Blockbuster Box” with just movies, no games. You could pay cash in the store to charge up your movie rental money. They could have directors or actors come in like bookstores have authors. Gaming authors, too.
Plus sell 5 kinds of Windows PC, phones, whatever. An “Anti-Virus Clinic” could be there.
It would have been a lower-end store, but look at this:
… so they need a lower-end store.
Right now, it is like Tata opening stores across the street from BMW dealerships.
Microsoft Stores are already 2 years old and no profits. No mindshare. No traffic. No hit products.
I’m curious how long it took Apple to get traction. Was it immediate? A few years?
Rethinking is their problem — they are rethinking the same thoughts that Apple already thought 10 years ago. What they need to do is think original thoughts.
Actually, Moeskido is trying to be cute, funny and clever. 🙂
He’s quoting David A. Goldstein, president of researcher Channel Marketing Corp, who said that about Apple stores back in 2001:
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2001-05-20/commentary-sorry-steve-heres-why-apple-stores-wont-work
“Is this thing on?”
Beautiful.
This is exactly what’s wrong with an inordinate number of corporations around the world. High-level cronies hired to do nothing while punishing the rank-and-file for having to work harder to maintain revenues.
Job security.
In part.
It took 2.5 years for the Apple stores to become profitable: http://www.ifoapplestore.com/stores/charts_graphs.html
I didn’t mean profits. More specifically, how long did it take them to get packed out? I realize it is years in now and they are like shopping at a rave (at times) but how long did that take?