The difference between an Apple Store and a Microsoft Store
Last week Microsoft opened a retail store. Saw this video of what Ed Cotton calls “faked euphoria” as customers are let in to the blue-screen-of-death-colored wonderland.
Of all the differences between an Apple Store and a Microsoft Store, there is one difference that matters most. One that cannot be ignored—that I believe will prevent Microsoft Stores from succeeding.
The critical difference is that we all work at the Microsoft Store already.
In cubicles all over the globe, Microsoft’s customers and potential customers are already experiencing what the brand has to offer (if you have recent statistics on what percentage of office computers are Dells running Windows, please share). Experiences include:
- Sending a DOCX, XLSX, or PPTX file to a business contact and having them ask us for the equivalent DOC, XLS, or PPT
- Attempting to “End Task” when a window or application is “Not Responding” and having the “End Task” function not respond
- Getting into office, turning on computer, getting coffee, checking computer and finding it’s still booting up, reading front page of WSJ, checking computer and finding it’s still booting up, talking to coworkers for 20 minutes about weekend, checking computer and finding it’s still booting up…
- Having applications “unexpectedly quit” and then being insulted by the suggestion that we’d want to notify Microsoft (granted, this is not Microsoft-unique)
- And worst of all…the infamous blue screen of death
Microsoft’s ubiquity (and they deserve credit for achieving it, as it’s what they set out to accomplish) is working against them. They are the brand of dull, airless office environments—Dilbert-style cubicles, microwave meals in fluorescent-lit kitchens, coffee that’s been in the pot since yesterday. Even when it comes to productivity, where Microsoft should shine, the experience often doesn’t live up to the promise. They will not successfully imbue their brand with what Apple already owns. Every step attempting to do so is a step away from continued success. A step away from standing for something that is true to what they are and always have been—something that matters to their customers and highlights their differences, not their similarities, as compared to Apple.
Have they made too many missteps to correct the course now? I’m not sure…but I have no more desire to shop at the Microsoft Store than a kid wants to hang out in the vegetable aisle.
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Wow – if you didn’t tell me that was video of an MS store, I wouldn’t have doubted for a moment that it was another Apple store. Weird.
I think Microsoft’s best campaigns were the ones where people buy computers and they are a few hundred less than the comparable Mac. MS’s brand doesn’t have to be nerdy. It can be about productivity, value and – wait for it – post-hipsterism. One definitely pays a premium for Apple, and does anything say “sheep” more clearly than a Mac laptop or an iPhone these days?
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talent imitates, genuis steals and all that
Is the Mission Viejo store open yet? when i first heard of this, i was thinking they should go the anti-Apple “too cool for school” approach. by the looks of this video, it seems they’re just trying to hard to imitate. It would’ve been really bold of them to perhaps personify the “dorky” corporate guy look in the apple ads and embrace it? the sony store experience is just as “me too” as well. especially w/their “Star Trek”-like uniforms.