Microsoft plans stores during harsh times for PC, consumer electronics industries

Anyone in the computer industry who has worked with Microsoft will know this. The lack of understanding between what the consumer wants and needs and what provides stems from an arrogant and eliteist behavior that permeiates their workforce. I don''''t like to generalize but most everyone that has worked with MS can tell you stories of how their people behave like no other company in the world. Their policies and procedures for are not friendly to anyone but MS and it is well known that they have made changes to signed and completed contracts because they know the other party does not have the resources to fight them. When MS needed something from us they expected us to jump, yet when we needed something from them, we had to make 10 calls and emails to get a reponse. Opening stores is not about listening to consumers, it''''s about luring them in and shoving what they made into peoples bags. A good example is their latest ad campaign

As your editors have said, if you sell desktops and laptops who gets in and who gets frozen out may determine who goes open source the fastest and companies like IBM, Google and others are ready to help them do it. For MS to sell individual PCs looks like a very dangerous game to play.

MS needs to backup a bit and reconfigure to get rid of bloat-ware so that they can be more effective with the mainstream products that people use. I want my PC to be easier to use, and not have a bloat of background software that is slowing me down. Ctrl-Alt-Del, show me which processes are attached to which programs so that I can delete un-needed processes. Make the things that are already in windows a little smarter. What good is it to tell me that the system found a p&p printer but cannot tell me which USB port it is connected to? Why can I not delete files for the printer even when the printer is not responding? Why not tell me the printer is not responding and to turn it off and back on? Why not show me the pages being sent to the printer and let me delete any I do not want to print and save paper for the page 2 with just one line? (The HP 1220 inkjet is the only printer I have found that is environmentally page friendly.) (Go HP! Recycle cartridges but waste paper!) In short, when I go to Wal-mart, I do not have to buy the whole store. I can buy just the things I need.

When I go into Best Buy, what I find is a smattering of MS products: Vista, Office, their GPS mapping program, and of course MS mice and keyboards. Buying Visual Studio, SQL-Server, Sharepoint, or some of the other ?rocket science? level stuff is out of the question. ~~~ Microsoft might not count on smart clerks to get its stuff sold, but it might well have a customer video conference with someone at a support center. This would serve two purposes: concentrate the sales talent, and demonstrate another technology to a prospect. ~~~ I remember an Egghead software store in San Antonio, and the sales staff there barely understood what they were doing. They could stock shelves and check out a purchase, but they had little capacity for either feature demonstration or support. More than likely the vendors came through with dog and pony shows when there were upgrades to productivity and graphics programs, but for the most part the clerks took this as in one ear and out the other. Some of the clerks were gamers or power users in another life, but such backgrounds wouldn?t address the product line comprehensively. ~~~ A retailer surviving on markup is going to struggle. The MS proposition is likely to be different: this is a permanent demo facility and sales are something you have to do to get people to show up. I used to escort buyers into Best Buy, Egghead, and CompUSA and configure PCs, accessories, or software on the spot. If someone needed a particular MS product I would probably take them to the store to demo something out-of-the box and operating, to see if they could use it. If they saw potential but still weren?t certain they could come back for a class. ~~~ Best Buy and Wal-Mart sell PCs configured for the sweet spot of the walk-in (i.e., naive) computer buyer. The mom-and-pop shops sell either the ?no-name clone? or high-end gaming computers, neither of which is representative of what businesses will use routinely. Don?t even think that any of these retailers will have a server of any sort available to a user for a demonstration. ~~~ The MS store would, most likely, have a mix of Dell, HP, and other brands, but the PCs, for the most part, aren?t the point of the store. The boxes will be above the middle range: larger memory, bigger drives, more advanced operating system configurations, wired to servers that the users can sit at and administer, and they can play with the routers, firewalls, and other specialized boxes that in most stores are never physically operating within reach of the customer. In short, the store should be a complete medium sized business computing facility, and a business owner (and their hired-gun development contractors) should be able to connect the dots between the workstation, printers, internal routers, servers, firewalls, and broadband modems. ~~~ A buyer might well come in with the intent of purchasing a five workstation network, and realize in discussions with people in the store that they really need a local VAR to carry the ball. In this capacity MS will be steering business to it?s existing dealer base. The revenue from those sales would easily cover the cost of running the store, even if the store itself sold nothing at all. ~~~ Since laptops make up more than 50% of PC sales at this point, and laptops are differentiating into netbooks, PDAs, and phones, quite a bit of hardware is portable in the original meaning of the word. These tend to morph fairly quickly, particularly with the PDA/smart phones, these are now very rich computing platforms and the only people that use them are IT managers. This is about two orders of magnitude away from the market MS has in mind for those devices. ~~~ The word ?store? is probably not quite appropriate, what it is more likely is a ?tech center?. There will be a large number of mistakes. The idea, however, is sound.

I think if Microsoft uses the store to effectively train users about how to effectively use their products, it could help them. Much like the recent Vista commercials where people were shown what the software could do, then told it was Vista. I don't believe Microsoft will make much money at the stores, but they could go a long way toward improving their image with the customer.

Well, I have to give Ballmer credit, he keeps the MS mantra of "Fail, reassess, lather, rinse repeat.." alive. Never 'misunderestimate' MS ability to stick to a plan long-term. MS has so little cred with their user base after Vista, that they *have* to do something to improve it. look for them to dump bucket loads of cash into the effort. Wouldn't surprise me if they succeed modestly in the effort.

I do not believe for a moment that MS can pull this off. They have no clue how to listen to customers. They do not learn from mistakes. And now they want to tick off much of their distribution chain. I truly look forward to the day that MS ceases to exist and then the PC industry can begin positive growth once a gain.

There was at least one Microsoft store, at San Francisco's Metreon, which closed in 2001.