Microsoft store

Well, I'm current in Atlanta on a business trip. I was desperate to find a Chick Fil A, and I happened to find one that was OPEN at the Lennox mall today.

Much to my surprise, in there they have a Microsoft store!

It should come to no surprise to anyone that, *gasp*, they tried to copy the look and feel of an Apple Store. Everything from a wordless logo above an all glass entry, to workbench style tables, relatively spartan environment - etc. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a "not quite genius, but very clever" bar.

Overall, I found the effort comical, and downright sad. Microsoft can't even come up with its own ideas for a retail store. The whole thing made it so clear that if it were not for Apple popularizing the GUI, all the Microsoft people would still be using DOS.

My wife and I went to the local Apple Store a couple of weeks ago to check out the new Retina MBPs. The store was packed, with about 100 customers milling about and a dozen or more employees. After leaving the Apple Store we walked over to a restaurant for lunch and passed a Microsoft store. As you mentioned, the similarities to the Apple Store were striking. The biggest difference was there were only four employees and two customers in the Microsoft store. Oh yeah, the Microsoft store was about one-fifth the size of the Apple Store.

I was in a mall in Austin a couple of months ago, and stopped to get a Lion flash drive. The place was packed, of course, just like it always is.

My wife (none techie) was totally surprised at her first entry to an Apple store. Her comment was that there were more employees in this mall sized establishment than in a full sized Best Buy. And probably more than in a WalMart superstore. I hadn't thought about it that way, but she was right. They were certainly more helpful.

After the purchase, we were standing by the railing looking down at the first floor. There was a Dell kiosk just below us with two employees. During our sojourn in the mall, we passed it two or three times and I never saw a customer at the counter.

Sounds like you were at Barton Creek. My wife and I were at The Domain.

Lightcraftsman said:

Sounds like you were at Barton Creek. My wife and I were at The Domain.

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I'm not an Austinite - come from a couple hundred miles away so I don't really know local names.

However, it is the one on the top of the mountain southwest of the city.

Nice place. Vastly better than the tinkertoy malls we have up here.

Yep, that's Barton Creek Mall. Great view of downtown Austin from up there.

Here in MN at Mall of America, the Apple Store and the Microsoft Store are directly across from each other which is kind of funny. Both are packed during peak hours. The Apple Store is packed even during off hours. Neither store is a pleasant experience IMHO.