Computer software giant Microsoft has announced plans to open its own stores, at a time when many other retailers are struggling in the economic downturn

BBC news article…

My thoughts;

MS are moving more towards services and away from software, and more towards hardware/providing platforms rather than software. The big issue at MS atm, and they recognize this internally, is that they don’t, and everyone knows that they don’t innovate.

The surface is the first interesting thing from an innovation pov to come out of MS for a long time. They’ve provided a hardware platform, and are letting others dream up the applications/uses. The restaurant application on the surface is very cool, and you can already see uptake (the vegas flirting app is just stupid imo!).

The retail stores do well in the US, and aren’t a new thing there. Just seems like an extension of the same thinking applied in the UK. Whether or not it will work here remains to be seen – but the Apple stores do well, not because of “fan boy” mentality, but because you can go and get help from a human being – not a call center that wants a credit card number before they can help you (consumer support side).

Apple puts a lot of time, energy, and money into building its community, and it pays off, not just for the brand following – but also for the fact that most apple users go from beginner to intermediate level very quickly – the workshops and classes they run are free, and useful.

Where do you get that with MS? Perhaps they will try and offer more of the same. Hopefully we’ll see some more innovation, rather than just reinventing what others are doing and calling it their own.

I’m not a “fan boy” of either. I like my mabook, never gives me any trouble, then again, nor do my Windows machines, or my Ubuntu laptop – each to their own, horses for courses, $insert_cliche_saying_here;