Details about Microsoft's retail stores have been kept heavily under wraps ahead of their fall launch, at least until a massive slide show of early concepts for the stores leaked online. Intended to compete head-on with Apple's retail stores, the stores may feature an Answers Bar for dealing with product issues, kiosks and wall space devoted to new hardware and software, and possibly even birthday parties for a fee.Microsoft
has announced several times that it intends to open retail stores in fall 2009
as part of its new competitive strategy. Despite speculation in the
blogosphere, though, Microsoft offered few details about the retail experience
it hopes will take some air out of Apple's
sails.
Then someone leaked a 140-slide PowerPoint document to Gizmodo that made the lines of Microsoft's
thought somewhat clearer.
As assembled by consulting company Lippincott, which has other clients in the
consumer sector that include McDonald's, Cingular, Borders, Sonic Drive-In and
Wal-Mart, the slides show a retail experience that includes a wall-sized screen
that wraps around the store, an "Answers Bar" that seems a variation
on Apple's Genius Bar, "distinctive" Microsoft shopping bags and
large tables lined with Microsoft products.
A sample store layout featured kiosk-like areas for PCTV, Windows 7, Smart
Phone and Personalization, with the center of the space devoted to product
tables. Xbox, Accessories, Laptops and Software would line the walls, and a
large space to the rear of the store would be occupied by both an Event/Partner
Space and the Answers Bar (referred to in one slide as the Guru Bar, suggesting
that Microsoft has yet to settle on a name.)
One slide shows how Lippincott analyzed similar stores in the space, notably
Apple's retail outlets, and brought away lessons such as, "Traffic means
money," "Keep it simple/Less is more," "Bundle up solutions"
and "Accessorize!"
In one notable difference from other high-end technology stores, though,
Microsoft may also offer "private birthday parties (2 to 3 hours)" for
a fee, along with free group training sessions and technology presentations.
Microsoft did not seem pleased with the leak, with a spokesperson issuing a
terse e-mail statement to eWEEK when asked about the slide deck:
"As a part of our process in briefing creative agencies, we shared some
early prototypes and concepts of our retail store plans. No final decisions
have been made. As we previously announced, we are on track to open retail
stores this fall."
Previous to the leak, it was thought that Microsoft's retail stores might
resemble the Retail Experience that opened in Redmond
in 2008, which offered the Zune and other products in a box store format.
During the Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans that ran from July 13 to
16, Microsoft
suggested that it would open its stores in close proximity to Apple stores,
possibly with the intention of taking some of Apple's market share and likely
with the hope of irritating Apple's top brass.
"It feels really good to be on the offensive here," Kevin Turner,
Microsoft's chief operating officer, said during the conference. "We're
doing stuff and we're in the game and continuing to take some of these hard
market-share opportunities head-on and compete because it's a test of
will."
A bigger question is how Microsoft envisions a retail experience bolstering
its bottom line. With
its fortunes tied heavily to the sales of new PCs, Microsoft's earnings have
dipped during the global recession, reporting a 17 percent decline in
year-over-year revenue for the fourth quarter of 2009. In addition to a
moribund economy and lackluster PC sales, Microsoft also found itself harmed by
consumers' newfound preference for mininotebooks or netbooks, which can only be
loaded with lower-margin Microsoft products.
Microsoft is also depending on its upcoming operating system, Windows 7which
is given a prominent position in some of the retail stores' conceptual slidesto
drive
a massive tech refresh among consumers and businesses.
