Microsoft will open stores in Arizona, California
Microsoft plans to open two of its first retail locations in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Mission Viejo, Calif., CNET News has learned. — The software maker confirmed on Tuesday that it has signed leases in both spots as part of an effort to launch its first retail outlets this fall.
Context & Ripple Effects
Two weeks after reporting that Microsoft would put its first stores near Apple locations this fall, CNET News has the specifics: signed leases in Scottsdale, Arizona and Mission Viejo, California, both opening this autumn. The timing puts the openings just ahead of Windows 7's holiday-season launch, giving Microsoft a controlled stage for the OS after years of selling through other people's shelves.
The move lands amid an unusually combative summer for Microsoft on the marketing front: it tweaked its 'Laptop Hunters' ads to reflect rival pricing days earlier, and a leaked presentation — unconfirmed by the company — claims the stores will feature wall-sized screens and an 'Answers Bar' designed to outdo Apple's retail format.
First-order effects
- Apple suddenly faces a direct imitator in its own malls: both announced sites sit near existing Apple Store locations, converting Microsoft's retail push into a head-to-head format contest rather than a separate channel experiment.
- Microsoft gains its first owned point of sale for Windows 7 hardware and software this fall, ending its total dependence on OEM and big-box retail for how consumers encounter its products.
Second-order effects
- PC makers and retailers that currently carry Microsoft's message — Best Buy and the OEMs above all — now share floor space with a landlord-turned-competitor whose store can favor its own branding and bundled services.
- If the rumored Answers Bar materializes, service desks become the competitive front: Apple's Genius Bar set the template, and Microsoft staffing a rival version pressures every consumer-electronics retailer to treat support as a storefront feature rather than a back-office cost.
Third-order effects
- Software companies copying Apple's vertically integrated retail model points toward brand-owned stores becoming table stakes in consumer tech — control of the demo experience migrating from channel partners to the vendor itself, with each major platform maker expected to follow or explain why not.
The trend: Consumer software vendors are following Apple into owned physical retail, using stores as brand stages timed to flagship product launches rather than as volume sales channels.