I think one point people are missing: Apple stores, even if they exist mainly to promote the brand, are MASSIVELY profitable. In fact, they are one of the most profitable store chains in the world. By contract, I believe that Microsoft was always running most of their stores at a loss. Even for a massive company like Microsoft, continuously running an unprofitable division is hard to maintain.
The apple store crowd is roughly 7% people confused about the error that says backups have stopped working unless you pay $.99. wondering what they can do to make the error go away. Wondering what they can delete and how.
> The difference is it only took Apple three years to reach $1B in annual sales. It took far more than that to earn the trust of consumers. Microsoft decided to sit back, collect rent on Windows/Office, and let other business do the hard work of customer service and let their customers deal with malware on their laptops. Contrast with Apple, who put customer service front and center, opened stores that my parents cou…
> Microsoft had all the cash in the world to make it happen. But instead, they put Candy Crush in the start menu. And got rid of Pinball. :(
How much is this MS deciding they’re really not a consumer brand - but rather one focused on cloud and enterprises?
Looks more to me like they are giving up on their Surface line-up specifically, rather than all their consumer focused products. The Microsoft stores & Surface line was Microsoft's attempt at copying Apple with expensive devices with solid build quality and good support. It saw some success but apparently not enough.
I don't think the announcement has anything to do with the Surface lineup. I expect that to be around for awhile.
This is a real shame. We have (had?) a Microsoft Store in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham), and my visits to that store were always really enjoyable. I made several warranty claims in-store, and they went above and beyond to help me out, even when my grounds for a claim were kinda shaky. Microsoft did a really good job of hiring diverse talent, and every store-clerk I ever interacted with was smart, nice, and seemed to…
Agree on "this is a real shame" feeling. I am not, in general, a heavy Microsoft user: my workstations both at home and in the office run Linux. But a few years ago, when I saw a Microsoft Surface tablet when I walked by the Microsoft store as I was waiting for my wife at the mall I was wowed by its ergonomics.
Within three months I bought one as a personal travel laptop and another one for work as my main laptop. An extended family member saw my Surface and bought one. Two people at work saw my work Surface and bought theirs for work. Having a Windows-only travel laptop made me look at WSL and I saw that while it was not perfect it is surprisingly useful which also surprised some die-hard Linux folks at work when they saw it. None of this would have happened if I did not walk by that Microsoft store; I would be buying another Dell laptop for work and griping about its lousy ergonomics.
Bought this computer I'm using right now from a Microsoft retail store. Great place to try out new computers. Disappointed.
> Great place to try out new computers.
Maybe that was the issue. At an Apple store if you said 'my kid needs a laptop for college' they will walk you to ONE computer (MBA) and say 'it's the best one' it's painless whereas MS was tied down by their partners to being non-confident in their own line and basically being a Best Buy.
> I guess waiting for Genius appointments I'm convinced this is deliberate - the apple store is full of blue shirts and people waiting for their appointments / devices to be fixed. It makes the shops look like they're busy, most shops would not make people wait around like that for things to be fixed, but apple gets away with it somehow. It's all very clever - I call it apple theatre, and yes I participate myself. I'…
Is a busy store a positive thing for most potential customers? Even before social distancing if I would see a crowded store I would not want to go in.
Perhaps, I've always noticed other shops empty but the apple shop is always bustling, but not overly crowded (most of the time), just the impression of things happening. I often compared it to the poor Bose shop (now defunct) that was nearby, no one went in there because the salesman leapt upon you as soon as you entered, and you couldn't just fiddle with things without being bothered. Bose have great products but people don't linger there, and the same for the Microsoft shops in the article, but people linger in apple stores - it's by design. (I'm talking pre social distancing of course, but then, even now, people are lining up outside apple stores like no other, and the blue shirts are looking after every one, all with masks and sanitisers and checking your temperature, all theatre - its a safe space, everything's OK in an apple store!)
Totally agree for Microsoft product owners. One of the hard things for MS I think is that the Apple store was successful because you couldn't get a Mac in the past anywhere else and it was a good experience that really set the tone of the Mac. Then the iPhone and iPod happened, that blew up the Store market for Apple. Microsoft doesn't have an iPhone, didn't have a successful consumer market beyond the Xbox and most…
> They have a major uptight brand problem, maybe the Mac v PC ads helped cause that, perhaps Maybe because the standard advice given when purchasing a Microsoft device was to spend hours reinstalling Windows to remove malware. I know technically it was HP or Dell or Sony’s device, but since there was no non malware option, obviously Microsoft chose to let those brands sully Microsoft’s brand for a few dollars in shor…
Ironically that got so bad that they sold 'Microsoft signature editions' without junk at the store.
This is a real shame. We have (had?) a Microsoft Store in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham), and my visits to that store were always really enjoyable. I made several warranty claims in-store, and they went above and beyond to help me out, even when my grounds for a claim were kinda shaky. Microsoft did a really good job of hiring diverse talent, and every store-clerk I ever interacted with was smart, nice, and seemed to…
> I made several warranty claims in-store, and they went above and beyond to help me out, even when my grounds for a claim were kinda shaky.
Maybe having a physical store that lowers the barrier for making warranty claims, especially “shaky” ones, isn’t a profit maker.
This is disappointing. The pandemic is certainly a change in my own behavior, but I regularly visited two Microsoft stores in the Chicago area and have made large purchases in each. Especially when new hardware is released, it’s great to see it within the construct of a corporate setting.
Of course the Best Buy model of having manufacturer space like a mini mall helps balance this loss, it’s not the same level of interaction.