671racer

Any Techies!? Just wondering if anyone has been to a Microsoft store yet. They just opened them and they look eerily familiar. I thought they would be a little more original... very sad actually. here are some videos of the opening of a Mac store May last year and the next one is of a Microsoft Retail Store opening today.

Apple Store opening May 2008:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg8GcLTp8es

Microsoft Store opening October 21, 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Hk0...layer_embedded

Will Y.

It must be a Microsoft store-- I think there was a BSOD (blue screen of death) on one of the monitors towards the end of the video.

Whiskers

The had to hold the line up while they performed a few Windows Updates on the wall....

rondog

iTrader: (1)

bunch of retards, both stores.

Rockstar21

iTrader: (1)

agreed..

funny about the blue screen reference though.

both times i've been in the apple store they had malfunctioning items on display.. both computers and ipods

JediMindTricks

i see BSOD everywhere too!

iTimmy

Microsoft is great at copying, not so great at leading. Bing, Zune, Vista(sort of), this and of course many others...

jupitersolo

You need to go back to the start of Microsoft as well. It's the only way they got started.

Doom878

So if Apple has Geniuses, what's Microsoft going to have? Dopplegangers?

DaChef320

iTrader: (1)

lol this is stupid their f**King retarded need to get a life o wow a apple store grand opening who the hell cares same with the microsoft store also them ppl gotta get a life

Anachostic

Anachostic

Is it such a bad business strategy to let others take the risk for innovation, then duplicate and improve on the idea? The money you save on experimental R&D can be spent keeping you in the game until you gain mindshare.

jupitersolo

Dingleberries

blackasscls

Oh.My.God.... all the cheering and hollering was so obnoxious and uncalled for. Imagine being one of those employee's and having to pretend that you're happy and exited, while in the back of your head you are thinking of putting your pee pee in an electrical socket in hopes that you are killed

Oh and there are no similarities microsoft is and has been original, and its everyone else thats copying them

Lightus

I still don't fully understand the point of the Microsoft store. Surely Microsoft must see that there is no reason for consumers to go there if they can get the same thing a Best Buy or somewhere similar. Unless they begin release exclusive products, they aren't filling any niches.

jupitersolo

It's about trying to get the image that Apple has with their customers. As said though, that make like no hardware.

doopstr

Both were sausage fests, why would anyone with even a bit of a life go to a store opening?

iTimmy

Without people willing to take chances we'd still be living in caves and grunting at each other. As an entrepreneur I can understand and even respect to a certain point mimicking another company, there is nothing wrong with playing it safe, but it has not fared well for Microsoft for the last 5+ years. If a company with less market capital and lacking the strangle hold on its users were in the same situation they would find it tough to continue. I know that that is not the case, I just think that a company with the resources of Microsoft should spend their time actually improving existing concepts or fine tuning them in a profitable fashion instead of, seemingly, mindlessly following others simply because they want a piece of the pie - regardless what they bring to the table.

But yea, I can see your point.

Whiskers

Waffles?

jupitersolo

They give away t-shirts

671racer

It's pretty obvious that someone can't see past this into the big picture. BTW, why don't you get a life instead of replying my post, or better yet some education, because you obviously can't even maintain a conversation.

Speed_Racer

Who's copying who? Microsoft opened a store in San Francisco in the Sony Metreon complex back in 2000 a year before Apple's first store. They just didn't have much to sell and went under a year later. Apple just seems to fit a brick/mortar model better since they have hardware they can sell in the traditional sense.

Sarlacc

I like this noob

I'm sure Apple didn't copy MSs format from the store that went under.

Where as MS is blatantly taking apples store design. They went as far as to hired apples former guy who pioneered the stores.

671racer

Exactly my point, even to the smallest details like this opening. I thought they were trying to be different with the release of their new OS, but they are emulating Apple. The worst part is that they are proud of being unoriginal. Really sad, especially for a company with deep pockets.

jupitersolo

Why don't you two get a room.

Dan Martin

I'm not sure how different a Microsoft store could look.

I am sure that they need stores though. I was in the employee's only store in Redmond a couple years ago and thought it was pretty cool. It was only a matter of time before they went retail with it.

Sarlacc

Only if you promise to be the meat in the middle

Sarlacc

Oh I dont know...I think it could have been different

The Dougler

iTrader: (1)

Do they retail PC's from different vendor's? I just don't see what they have to retail, software is not a retail item, so if they aren't selling hp's and such what's it filled with a couple of Zune's and Xbox's?

Dan Martin

So it would be better carpeted, with heaps of crap piled everywhere, and nobody to answer questions? I think the design makes sense. It's obviously similar, but it works.

Sarlacc

Could have been like the shitty gateway stores. Or the Dell kiosks.

Point is it could have had several different types of typical corporate templates, but they chose to go after apple directly and damn near verbatim.

Its just an accolade to apple to show their business is so successful MS felt the need to copy it just to compete.

But your view of "reality" never fails to wow me.

Dan Martin

Where the hell did that come from?

Yes, the Microsoft Store is nearly a carbon copy of the Apple store. They sell the same stuff to the same market, I'd assume they'd be about the same. The Apple store has been a big success for Apple and there's no doubt that MS is trying to cash in on that. How's that for reality?

If you were running Microsoft today, what would your store look like?

671racer

At least Apple is selling their own merchandise... Microsoft is selling their OS?.. oh wait they have the Zune and the Xbox and shirts!... Well, at least Microsoft customers have somewhere to complain when they have problems, they're going to need more of these.

Will Y.

Circuit City? WalMart?

671racer

#1 STUNNA

Yeah this is a complete ripoff of an Apple store. Seriously, were the multi-colored t-shirts necessary?

In regards to MS never inventing anything I can think of a few. Windows Media Center I don't know of anyone else doing that first and now a days there isn't a better way to watch TV than with WMC. 2nd would be the Tablet PC with handwriting recognition, etc and it's gotten REAL good in Windows 7 as has Media Center. Also this hasn't been announced officially yet but the Microsoft Courier is like a extremely portable dual-screen Tablet running One Note on Steriods and Crack. Check it out. Who else has anything like this?



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#1 STUNNA

Oh and the ribbon UI in Office. A radically new interface that brought all the hidden features of Office up to the surface instead of being buried in drop down menus.

671racer

yeah i saw that gizmo they "supposedly" thought up. but, the problem with their inventions is that they preview them before the release. The best way to do things is proven with the iphone, release it and sell it same time. take everyone by surprise and win most of the market with blow away products. anyway though, the point of it was to show the pathetic resemblance to an apple store they try to copy. its more of an inside joke with others who use mac because if you did, you would see all of the operating system features windows ripped off from previous versions of macOS.

#1 STUNNA

LOL! That was the worst example you could use. If you remember the iPhone was announced in January and wasn't released until 6 months later at the end of June.

Also MS is different than Apple in the fact that they can't just announce a new product and release it the same day. They have thousands of partners from hardware to software vendors that need time to prepare their own product to work with it. This is why Windows 7 was finalized in July but yet didn't get released publicly till the end of Oct. MS can't just say hey here's Windows 7 it's awesome and it's available today, get some! That abandons all their partners that are left in the dark.

Apple does this (or used to) with their iPods and it's a bad experience for their partners and initial customers. Apple releases a new iPod that has a different shape or a change to it's dock connector, etc and Apple with it's obsession with secrecy would rather not tell it's partners and have them be unprepared then notify them (which greatly increases the chances of info leak) so they can have their cases, sleeves, iPod docks etc ready when the new product comes out. So now when the new iPod comes out you'll see there's no cases, sleeves, screen protectors, etc for their mutual customers cause Apple didn't notify it's partners of the changes in order to better keep it secret.

#1 STUNNA

Oh I should've read the rest of your post.

Show me again how you do this in OS X cause I'd like to know?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7szEK...er_profilepage

or this one. I'm sure it's been in OS X for years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGth7...er_profilepage

Then I could go on about built-in DVR support, ability to stream your home media collection to anywhere on the internet, mutli-touch screens, etc but I won't bore you with those features you can't do in OS X.

p.s. I've used a Mac for over 10 years.