Last Updated: July 14, 2011 02:26pm ET
Counter Culture

Can Microsoft's Stores Ever Compete With Apple's?

By Ian Ritter
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Let's get this out of the way to start things off: We have never been in the new Microsoft retail stores. They could be awesome, fun places with customer service that make Nordstrom seem like a DMV.

But it still doesn't matter.

There is no way that Microsoft's stores are going to compete with Apple's. Apple, being the manufacturer of all the fancy hardware in its stores, rightly made a big stage on which to show these products.

You can buy Microsoft's products at any Best Buy or discount store out there. All they really make to showcase are video games and software. Oh, and computers that other companies made.

Regardless, Microsoft plans on ramping up its store count, increasing by 75 units in the next two to three years, up from its current 11. This push is happening, though the elaborate stores are expensive to open, and are supposedly losing money.

Of course, this isn't going to hurt the highly profitable Microsoft, but we think it it could end up being just another concept that ends up shutting its doors, and leaving vacancies, after an unmemorable run.

Perhaps the top review of Microsoft's Scottsdale, AZ store on Yelp sums it up best. It reads, in part: "i [sic] would never buy anything here, but would definitely stop in just to play with the gadgets."

(To search across all ALM blogs, go to www.Lexis.com.)

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