The Microsoft Store

I've had some thoughts after reading an article about a Microsoft Store. The great innovators in chief over at Redmond have struck upon a brilliantly original concept of having brick and mortar stores to sell directly to the public, just don't tell Apple, they might follow suit. Seriously, do they do anything original these days?

Apple are the darling of many a consumers eye because they make sleek, sexy exclusive gear. Apple are the darling of many CEO's eyes because they've managed to resist the temptation to reduce prices to compete, they have a small but loyal market share who find value for money in the extra premium price. In short, Apple are perceived by their customers and shareholders as a premium brand. This means high profits per sale. Virtually every other company on the planet would kill for that.

Microsoft have seen the value in selling direct it seems. They've also seen the value of an online eccosphere of applications, music, movies, games etc where they get a cut of every sale. Their XBOX Live service is apparently doing very well, they failed miserably with the Zune, and it's not looking too bright for the Windows Phone 7 apps store.

By deciding to go head to head with Apple on the high street it makes it interesting. Apple's strength comes with exclusivity. They control where you can buy their products, and which products you can buy from those outlets. Independent retailers can't just order lots of Apple gear from a variety of wholesalers to sell in their store. This is very different to the way Windows PCs are sold. So where is the USP (Unique Selling Point) of a Microsoft clone store?

No Windows license is ever free, it's always built into the price of the PC. Given that there's no cost after the OS is designed to produce another copy, this is basically £50 (or whatever the undisclosed per seat cost is to that retailer) to buy a sticker. Microsoft can remove that, or undercut it, since third parties still have to shell out that cost, and pass it on to the consumer. If this is the case, then Microsoft are back to their long practised idea of "thou shalt not compete with Microsoft and win".

When you buy a Windows PC it's always infested with all sorts of crapware for all sorts of things. There's a reason for this. The vendors of these applications pay the retailer a fee to include them. The more crap they put on for you, the more they make, which offsets the cost of the Windows license and gives the impression that Windows it free of charge, it's not.

The other way for independent retailers to compete with a Microsoft store in their town is to increase the amount of crapware they install out of the box, where Microsoft can offer a better product (well, a cleaner product at least) for the same price, or still cheaper. Where would you buy?

That would mean that a new Microsoft store arriving in a commercially attractive centralised spot in town would be kill existing retailers relying on selling Windows PCs. Large corporations already have big bucks buying power to drive down wholesale prices; this just adds to the impact. This means there's no longer any reason for those retailers to try and compete where they simply can't, which is where an alternate OS would fit in. Luckily there's this thing called Linux, I may have mentioned it from time to time.

As a Linux and FOSS advocate, I kinda hope Microsoft roll this out to lots of towns and cities, in part because they seem to have the negative Midas touch, where almost everything they touch turns to shit, and in part because it would blow through a LOT of cash they'd otherwise use to fund lobbyists, lawyers, politicians and journalists into glueing in their monopolies and setting up extortion rackets based on dodgy undisclosed patent claims. It would also open the door to a LOT of independent PC vendors looking to FOSS solutions to be able to compete. This opens up a lot more people to FOSS, as well as job opportunities for those who have the skills and understanding of how the FOSS idea actually works.

Microsoft would be able to get their exclusivity that they covet like Apple, unfortunately for them, Microsoft's name is mud in so many places. Increasingly the only people defending Microsoft are people paid / bribed by Microsoft. This is most definitely not the case with Apple or FOSS / Linux. Just being exclusive does not make them a premium brand either, as they will no doubt find out in time.

People have a perception of "Mac v PC" not "Apple OSX v Microsoft Windows". The branding is there, and Microsoft are the generic no-namers that are as common as muck. A "PC" means "Personal Computer"; ie the OS and the hardware as a combo. This means that Macs are PCs, so are Windows PCs, so are Linux PCs. They are all just a combo of hardware and OS allowing for software to be installed, hardware connected to personalise the device to perform certain tasks.

Most non-techy people don't know what Windows, Internet Explorer etc is even if they use it all day at work. They switch on their PC, go make coffee, catch up with some gossip and come back to wait for Windows to boot up. They are oblivious to the Microsoft brand. This is not a fertile ground to open a store around that brand, specially when it puts it in people's faces that it's another "me too" clone of an Apple store without the sparkle.