Well, this is going to be fun! Microsoft, after dominating the operating system market, office software, is all set to rule the retail store front now. Microsoft, who hired former Wal-Mart exec David Porter to be its corporate vice president of retail stores back in February, has just confirmed that stores are, indeed, on the way -- and soon. COO Kevin Turner, confirmed the plans at the Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans yesterday, saying they're due to open this fall - just in time for the Windows 7 October 22 launch time frame.
Many of the Microsoft stores will open up right near Apple stores to compete with the popular Apple retail chains. Microsoft is slow to get into the market of having its own retail chain, which will sell all of their own products, much like Sony and Apple currently do.
Microsoft will soon set its foothold in the retail industry by opening up stores to sell their wide range of products, including both software and hardware, games and more. You can expect the entire range of Microsoft products from Windows OS, Office products to games, game consoles, computer devices, music devices and more in store. They have been manufacturing all kind of products, so it makes more sense for them to have their own retail units. This makes sense since they could achieve their ultimate objective of garnering more sales and profits in their own stores, than they would in a third party store, who have their own margins, thus making the final profits a bit lower.
The retail chains will be able to directly assist customers with their Microsoft purchases, rather than having large retail chains like Bestbuy sell Microsoft products.
