Exclusive photos, video from Microsoft Store grand opening - Page 2

They would have placed an Apple logo instead if it wasn't for copyright laws

Same question here...why the HELL is AI promoting Microshaft's highly "innovative" stores now?

No- I was just in the Apple store at lunch.

I love chest thumping.

With that much share, do they need a store?

No, but its MS's desire to try to be cool and boost their image. They want to get that Buzz like Apple does.

The OS war was over YEARS ago.

I don't see a ton of products, what do they sell other than Windows and Office? It does not seem to be an experience rich store.

You see they got this call from Cupertino that told them to whip up the fanbase. Unfortunately it's not working this time because the arguments are so stupid.

There is no such thing as a premium market. That is something made up by Apple fanboys to justify that Apple has never broken into double digits in the PC arena.

Apple creates and arena and will only play in that arena. If they were that proud of their OS and felt that could support the many hardware options MS supports they would have done it a long time ago. Fact is they can't.

Its not that hard to have the #1 rating in customer service when you are only supporting 9% of the market and have a handful of hardware options.

Premium market my Velocity mirco system cost more then two 27" iMacs. Apple uses the same hardware as everyone else there isn't anything Premium in their hardware, that is a myth that people like you have talked themselves into believing.

Its not chest thumping its just a simply fact.

Confined to the bottom-end, and falling.

MS' share is based on three things:

Ignorance, intertia, and universal licensing.

When you think "Premium", "desirable", "innovative", Apple comes to mind. And it's not by accident.

MS is just sad these days. Ballmer talks a big game about the R&D they're spending in the consumer sphere, but there's no evidence of it.

Oh No!, APPL is dropping!

Don't kid yourself. Apple is very scary. Nokia has noticed it. Google has noticed it. Microsoft finally fired back in commercials.

You may (correctly) point out that Apple's market share is very small in everything (except MP3 players). The reason that Apple is scary, even with a small percentage, is that it has an impressive acceleration in market share. If they reach a certain "critical mass", then things can change quickly.

You would be a fool not to consider Apple a threat, and that's why you are seeing the 800 pound Guerillas (Nokia, Google, Microsoft) behaving the way they are.

Thompson

They certainly took a lot of design cues from Apple, but was to be expected.



I wonder how its going to work out for customers. If you bring in a Mac to an Apple Store and there is a HW issue will ship it off for repair or do it themselves. Is the MS store Gurus going to do that for customers or turn the customer away when the issue is not OS related?

You left out Verizon - and they don't take no sheet.
Their commercials are ossum!

There is such a thing. Every sector of retail has a Premium market. Do you honestly think the market is one big market with no divisions??

Right, and Bugatti targets the average consumer. Patek-Phillippe targets lower incomes. Too funny.

You might not think Apple puts out a Premium product. But consumers decide that, and the industry responds. There is an acknoweledged Premium market in tech. Makes no difference who created it.

teckstud is the dog shit someone stepped on, it's probably staining someone's shoes...you won't see that in the picture

I wonder how many people per day will walk in wanting to buy an ipod or iphone and get dumbfounded looks!\

Do you think the Burger King fanboys bash every new McDonalds for copying their stores and vice versa?

Extremeskater-

Apple has over 90% of the US PC market of computers priced above $1,000. This is a fact.

Call that market what you want (the previous poster invented the term "premium"). But you can't dismiss it.

My hunch is that you didn't realize that statistic.

Thompson

That picture of the storefront with nothing but a logo at the top looks kind of familiar.....












Oh yeah!

I will definitely visit their store if and when they open one around here. Copying is easy, but it's getting the details right that's hard. I'll withhold opinion further until I see it for myself... hee, hee!

I thought they had 100%. \
Is the other 10% for the MAcBook priced at $999?

Wow, this was creepy. Stalkerish peeping-tom creepy. The very notion of Microsoft opening a store was disturbing enough, from a business perspective, as the only thing they really stand to gain is brand recognitionbut like so much of the other things they've done lately, I can't help but to think the money could have been spent better elsewhere. And opening up right across from the Apple Store is probably a terrible idea. Apple is going to show them up.

What kills me is that this is almost a clone of the Apple store. Microsoft's business and products are very different from Apple's. Apple carefully researched and tailored their store's presentation to suite their products and customers, and Microsoft just copied it without any regard for the differences between the two companies.

Good job, Microsoft. You're training your faithful to be comfortable in an Apple Store.

Quite true.

Windows marketshare is based on cheap PC's for a large part.

Funny how Dell now seems to be trying the boutique computer thing now. But, they for years wanted to be the Walmart of the computer business. It got them a lot of marketshare, but at what price? Going to be hard to convince consumers to buy something expensive from Dell. Dell lead a bunch of others into the ground having to play in the near zero margin space. They need volume to make it.

Apple won't and has never done that. They see the carnage.

It certainly will only gain minute share but its a nice profitable little niche.

Windows is associated with cheap.

Like bringing in your iMac to show them in Windows 7 that your bluetooth mouse won't connect no matter what you do?

What's that bulky looking squarish piece of crap in his hand? A Zune?!

Yeah, actually I left out a whole host of companies across numerous electronics categories. I just wanted to make my point as concisely as possible: Apple is nobody's whipping boy. They have exactly the market niche that they are targeting, and that niche happens to be growing. The competitors need to fear that Apple might redefine the niche as the market, like they did with iPod. Nobody really feared that device either... until it was far too late.

Regarding Verizon, their commercials are certainly targeting iPhone customers, but they don't bash the device itself. They only bash AT&T. (People assume that Verizon is bashing iPhone itself, but look a little deeper. Actually study the commercials.) It's a great strategy, because the number one disappointment that iPhone users have is with the network. If it begins to pay dividends, in the form of stemming the switcher tide or (gasp!) prying a few ex-iPhone users away from AT&T (and thus the device as well) then Verizon will gain a bit more leverage with whatever negotiations are ongoing between them and Apple for future iPhone rights.

Thompson

If most of the people who bought stuff walked out with little bags, presumably containing Windows 7, the stores are already in trouble. There's not enough money in that to sustain the store. I have a feeling the stores will be around as long as Microsoft feels it can afford to subsidize them.

Microsoft has tried and failed to enter and dominate every possible IT market outside its core competency (if it has one). Every time I go to the grocery store, I half expect to see Microsoft Potato Chips.

About the article: I wasn't there, but I am pretty sure the imagines were rotating, not the screens. Rotating screens would be a sight to see.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles..._by_apple.html

The very site you hang out on says there is (and it's not just little old AI saying it, either.)

Now what?

Tekstud:


Doesnt that violate the terms of your restraining order?


Nice Store I suppose. If they really push the xbox experience I think they could make a buck or two, but it will be hard to make the venture pay for itself just on the back of OS and productivity software imo.

For someone that constantly bad mouths Apple on these forums he seems to spend a lot of time in Apple Stores. Perhaps researching new things to hate.



Apple also takes ⅓ of every dollar spent for all PCs sold in the US. By only selling their OS with their PCs how does Extremeskater expect OS X to beat Windows when the largest PC maker only commands 25% of the PC market. That means Apple would only be at 25% if it were to switch places with HP, but even that would be a pretty impossible feat without resorting to selling $400 notebooks supplemented by crapware. The idea of directly comparing Mac OS X marketshare to Windows to show which one is healthier get more and more retarded each time it’s stated.

Isn't the first Windows 7 Launch Party today?

Anybody been invited or going? http://houseparty.com/windows7

I hate to inform you but the new iDon't comercial, that was shown 10 times during the playoffs last night goes directly after the iPhone and not AT&T at all.

Here, watch (tell me what you think):

http://phones.verizonwireless.com/mo...roid-redirect1

I can build a gaming PC that would cost 3 grand easy.

Sounds like you got ripped off if you paid over 3 grand for a micro system.

The "former Apple manager" will be on an unemployment line with a year.

There are quite a few $1,000+ computers out there in the Windows world. In fact, retail computers which compete head-to-head with some of Apple's high-end machines never land below that number. You don't see them in retail stores much because the vast majority of PC traffic is focused on low-cost machines. I have a feeling you already know this, though.

Sure, there are people out there who buy a Mac for the image (which is still so strange to me as a long-time Mac user, including the dark days where almost nobody used one) but many are buying Macs for other reasons, such as the quality of the hardware and the operating system. I know dozens of families in my area alone who have purchased their first Mac in the last two years (former PC families) and not one of them purchased a Mac for any sort of image-related reason. Usually it comes down to the "it just works" observation, and none are disappointed.

This isn't just an Apple thing. There are many people who realize that quality is very important in a product like a PC (or a car, or a television, or kitchen appliances), especially when they aren't familiar with repairs and something silly like a virus removal can result in a $300 raping at GeekSquad. I struggle to recommend good PC manufacturers to friends and friends' family who want a new PC because so many of them have pushed so hard to reduce the price at the cost of quality (heck, HP made it official to their shareholders a few years back).

Comparing features on a Mac to features on a PC is like comparing features on a Windows Mobile phone to features on an iPhone. It dismisses so much of what actually leaves people happy with the products.

in sydney that comment would be true. the flagship apple store is always packed from day to night so everyone know about the genius bar and the layout and the portable POS terminals. Yes most consumers are not thick and will notice

Probably. He found out the wait to see a Guru was going to be a while!

Any one gonna venture a guess at how long before someone starts hacking their stores to make a statement? I'm sure their machines are locked down tighter than a drum but you know these things gotta be a really tempting target.

I stand corrected...

Actually, I learned about that one last week but then forgot about it. (I seldom watch primetime TV, especially not the baseball playoffs, so the commercials haven't "sunk in" with me yet.)

Thompson

Hmm... taking over those monitors around the perimeter and streaming the "Developers, developers, developers!" Ballmer rant would be an excellent start!