My Review of the Microsoft store at the Mission Viejo Mall...
Depressing- that's it. Just plain depressing...
I went to the store yesterday, and the first thing you see is a massive amount of advertising in the mall for the store and huge banner hanging down in the middle of the mall, announcing its location. In front of the store, there are these- not sure how to describe them- "hip, uncomfortable, modern" chairs with what look like exotic cactus-like shrubbery growing in planters attached to the chairs. There are eight of these chairs, arranged in a way like an ultra-modern lobby to a large office building. I thought, "these are cool" and went to look at the plants- FAKE! FAKE PLANTS! weird, plastic fake plants....
Which brings us to the interior of the Microsoft store. There are multiple tables setup for laptops, desktops, large televisions, etc. Want to know what they look like? Go to an apple store. I mean, I really wanted to give the MS store the benefit o the doubt, but I can't. they copied Apple detail for detail. The only difference is the half-assed attempt at the use of color- the windows 7 logo colors are just everywhere. They have things projected in the walls, like idea games, and a couple of surface computers. Surface is cool- like a giant ipod touch... on its side.... with legs.... and crappy demo apps.
The staff had the same hip-apple-alloofness attitude, and the products were running MS software... But it was amazing to pick up a windows mobile phone and just try to get on the internet with it. It was a sharp contrast from the iphone, which just, I don;t know, works.
Although the store is bright, airy, and colorful, there is something just insincere or fake about it. The best analogy I can come up with is a white guy rapping like Vanilla Ice- it just feels.... weird. Weird and sad... That's all I can say.
I went to the store yesterday, and the first thing you see is a massive amount of advertising in the mall for the store and huge banner hanging down in the middle of the mall, announcing its location. In front of the store, there are these- not sure how to describe them- "hip, uncomfortable, modern" chairs with what look like exotic cactus-like shrubbery growing in planters attached to the chairs. There are eight of these chairs, arranged in a way like an ultra-modern lobby to a large office building. I thought, "these are cool" and went to look at the plants- FAKE! FAKE PLANTS! weird, plastic fake plants....
Which brings us to the interior of the Microsoft store. There are multiple tables setup for laptops, desktops, large televisions, etc. Want to know what they look like? Go to an apple store. I mean, I really wanted to give the MS store the benefit o the doubt, but I can't. they copied Apple detail for detail. The only difference is the half-assed attempt at the use of color- the windows 7 logo colors are just everywhere. They have things projected in the walls, like idea games, and a couple of surface computers. Surface is cool- like a giant ipod touch... on its side.... with legs.... and crappy demo apps.
The staff had the same hip-apple-alloofness attitude, and the products were running MS software... But it was amazing to pick up a windows mobile phone and just try to get on the internet with it. It was a sharp contrast from the iphone, which just, I don;t know, works.
Although the store is bright, airy, and colorful, there is something just insincere or fake about it. The best analogy I can come up with is a white guy rapping like Vanilla Ice- it just feels.... weird. Weird and sad... That's all I can say.
Comments
I've seen videos of the Microsoft stores (the hideous spontaneous employee dancing one and store opening) and it's pretty clear they have tried to rip Apple off again but you can see this so plainly that it doesn't have the same effect as the Apple Store.
The thing about style is that you just have it or you don't and Microsoft is comprised of corporate suits who don't so they try and buy it with their cash reserves and replicate what makes others successful and it doesn't work because their brand and good style don't go together any more.
I have in the past compared Microsoft to a rich businessman with a beautiful wife (the consumer) who is tied to him and there is an attractive gardner (Apple). The businessman desperately wants the wife to love him and uses all his money to do so but the gardner just has something the businessman doesn't. The harder he tries to offer something better, the more desperate he seems and the more power the others have over him.
For all the money and power they have in their business, they can't buy respect, they have to earn it. They have to stop copying ideas from other people and just innovate and make good, reliable products. When they don't, you walk into a cheap knock-off store and see unreliable, poor quality products and walk out with no more respect for that brand than when you went in.