The latest news is Microsoft is starting its own retail stores to sell their products. This concept is real they learnt from Apple, because of their huge success on the Apple Stores business. But, will microsoft can get the same success as Apple does. Is it the right time for that? As my opinion is the retail stores needs huge investment. Already people are cutting the spending, they will not get back the money what they invested. It is better they can invest the same money on developing operating systems. post your opinions. story is here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123448293075579777.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Ah. More vapor. No substance. (Wal-Mart?!) What are they going to sell? Pretty Windows OS boxes? Picture this. Walk into a Microsoft store. Then walk into an Apple store.
yeah why not... they sure can do it... afterall Microsoft is doing every thing.. everything to capture the whole US/World Software Market... so they will do everything... they will pay the retail stores just for their survival...
I think they'll be able to create something similar. The Zune Marketplace is awesome. I like it much better than iTunes.
Microsoft=No Who would they have to compete against? I mean in my eyes Apple is there biggest competitor and why take out the competition?
This is actually pretty big. Look at the bigger picture... 1. Microsoft competes with Sony's Playstation and Nintendo's Wii in the gaming arena. There are a couple of things to look at as far as the gaming arena is concerned. If you are paying someone like GameStop, Walmart, etc. to sell your games and consoles... why not eliminate them entirely by having your own store? This does 2 things. It eliminates their competition from view on the shelves (at least in their own stores) which could create higher sales conversions in their stores vs someone opting for a Playstation or Wii instead. It could also create good console launch envrionment. Think of how crazy it is when the latest iPhone gets released. Microsoft may be using that as an idea to increase their Market share in the gaming arena when an XBOX only game comes out, or the next XBOX 720 comes out. If they limit the number of consoles/games available to the main stores like Walmart, Gamestop, etc. and make the Microsoft store have the larger quantities they would drive all that traffic away from those stores and into their own stores. Then it would really be about upsells with exclusive deals only available at the Microsoft store. 2. Microsoft has made attempts to compete with Apple in the mp3 player arena with their Zune. This could be something they are wanting to do to create a launch pad for future products that could come on the Zune, much like the iPhone apps. They could turn the Zune into a Phone, or sell Pocket PC/Smart Phones with their OS in their stores. If Microsoft was to really focuse a lot of cash into the development and marketing of their Zune, then they could compete with Apple's iPod/iPhone... but if they half ass it like they do their OS releases... then this is just a waste cashflow. I believe they will have something similar to the iPhone apps on these... at least if they want it to survive. I mean Bill himself said without software that thing is just a box with blinking lights. 3. Microsoft could be moving into hardware... with their table top pc or whatever it was called. Wasn't it Google that wanted to create a $100 computer with their own OS? Maybe Microsoft is trying to beat them to the punch line. Often times first to market is the one who rakes in the cash. This would also be a good place to promote their table top pc. Consumers would be oohing and ahhing about it... and businesses might be interested in having it as a waiting room type of device. Then again they may end up having a consumer priced model. Creating a Microsoft store would be their best option for a lot of different things. Would it be cheap? Probably not... but then again, they were about to buy Yahoo before that deal went south... so maybe this is what they are looking to put their investment dollars into instead. Services, Services, Services Look at all the things Microsoft competes with people on. They start creating all of these services available via the Microsoft store, then they will keep people buying their products instead of their competitors. They could use these stores to upsell customers on service plans for their software and other devices, like tech support, warranties, etc. Basically copying what the hardware companies like Dell do with their own products. Getting Too Big for their Pants? This has one pitfall that I see long before it actually happens. If Microsoft is able to capitalize on this idea for their Stores, then they could be looking at another fight with the government. They would become so huge, it might end up being like Bellsouth years ago where the government forced them to break apart into several smaller companies.
True Microsoft is already a bit of a Monopoly in my eyes keep what you have...I mean everything is going great...give it time for the US markets to recover and Microsoft will be booming again...it takes time and if they get to greedy in the end it will screw them over...I cant wait to see how they preform in 09
HI, It is nice post. But it is not going to be very serious. becos microsoft is no longer the very big company since other competitor taking the market share. opening store would stay in the market, thats what they r thinking. but succeeding the retail is not just selling PCs. They have to put realy good effort on it. Lets wait and see.
Sparky... please. I would drop out of college any day of the week for the billions he has made. On top of that, he really hasn't stopped learning. He has mentioned in several interviews that he still continues his education. It may not be for actual credits in a college, but he takes courses online for the fun of it.
Bill Gates is one of the world's smartest men to live in the face of the planet, he nearly single handily build a nation of computers, now a day a world of computers. (Yes a nation of computers, because last time I checked you can't get Linux in a retail store when your buying a PC) How can you say he's dumb? The same comments go for Steve Jobs, hope he gets better : \ Would hate to see one of the two greatest go down. What OS are you running? Windows... People complain so much about how they won't fix their product line, on the account they took in millions of user comments and different subjections about XP to make Vista, they are working on fixing their software.... If people don't like it so much, why not try coming up with your own OS. We'll see how well you do. Also, Microsoft stores would be a HUGE hit. Everyone would go there to buy anything MS related, they can buy direct while retail cannot. Most people wonder, why don't they sell computers. They can't because the government won't let them. *cough* monopoly *cough*
HI, Your views are correct. People always talk thing like this but doesn't mean that MS small fish. Here we just discuss who is superior apple or ms?. everyone has their own opinion. i am big fan of apple. now i am typing this post in windows xp (however this month end i am going to get my first iMac from apple store). stevejobs and billgates..both are great and it is sad to miss these guys. there is no replacement for them. i am sure Ballmer can't replace Bill, same way TimCook cannot replace steve jobs.