When I worked at Best Buy, we had a small kiosk for Apple branded products. It always stood out, because Apple styled things differently than anything else in our store. Also, the kiosk had a specially trained Apple representative. They were never really part of the team, but from what I remember did a decent enough job.

Apple has done quite a bit to expand their retail presence, by showing up in more stores, while opening up more stores on their own. Microsoft looks to start following this trend as they’ve announced plans to show up in more retail stores.

I’m left questioning as to how opening a chain of retail stores could benefit Microsoft? It make sense for Apple because nearly everything the provide is proprietary. Meaning that when you shop with Apple, everything that you need to get started is done through Apple. From hardware, down to software.

Microsoft has a different way of monetizing their business. They generally sell their OS for use in other vendors. There’s very few products that Microsoft can actually ’sell’ in a retail store. Granted, they have expanded with their Zune, and the gaming console, Xbox 360.

I think that Microsoft could find success by opening up a vendor system in already open retail stores. Much like the Apple kiosk I mentioned before. Since Microsoft relies on so many products used on other systems, just having a presence to provide customers with information would be a viable option. Plus, it would be funny to see an Apple rep, and Microsoft rep duke it out in the middle of a Best Buy.

[via: Cnet]

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