Microsoft to open stylish "MS Store" a la Apple Store

In case you hadn't noticed, Apple opened its Sydney store last week. That should read Apple Store Sydney-that-happens-to-be-in-the-CBD, in order to differentiate it from the soon to be opened Apple Store Sydney-Chatswood.

Bluescreen can't help but think that Chatswood may be a common pronunciation mistake for people trying to find the Apple Store Chadstone, and that the taxi fees for Melbourne tourists who get that one wrong will be particularly ghastly. In any case, Apple's bringing the latest battlefront in the IT space to Australia this week -- the battle in the retail world.

Sure, we could bore you with all the facts and figures of the Apple store -- biggest this, largest that -- but frankly, we're still trying to work out if a genius bar is some kind of sentient chocolate, something you use to break into intelligent buildings, or an establishment that serves liquified bits of Albert Einstein. Also why, on first inspection, there seem to be no female geniuses?* Could it be that even Apple can't make working in IT Help attractive to women? Actually, strike that thought -- working in any IT help capacity isn't attractive to anybody, no matter how shiny a T-shirt they give you.** [I spotted a female Apple Store employee working the counter of Sydney Apple Store when I went to have a look the other day - DW]

In any case, it's not like you can't buy Apple equipment elsewhere, and undeniably the new Apple store represents as much of a branding exercise as it is a retail store. For what it's worth, Bluescreen's still not sure where the checkouts in the Apple store are -- or even what kinds of gossip magazines and chocolates they'll sell there while you wait.

There's nothing the IT industry loves more than success, and there's nothing that it does more with success than attempt to imitate it. Retail is clearly a hot topic, with Dell recently announcing plans to sell through OfficeWorks recently a good example of where you can add value to a brand -- because nothing says quality like laptops rubbing shoulders with rubber bands and budget office chairs, after all...

Still, Dell's dalliance is much more SOHO-focused, whereas the Apple store is a touchy-feely kind of experience, and one that no other IT vendor has matched -- up until now. Because now the battle has really begun.

Bluescreen's well-paid moles within Microsoft indicate that plans are well underway within Redmond for a variety of "Microsoft Store" initiatives. "We're the undeniable market leaders in blowing the billions our operating system and office monopoly bring in on stupid ideas that never bring us in any money" our mole told us.

"Web TV, Windows CE, Zune, MSNBC -- you name it, we've done it. Don't tell anybody, but the Xbox guys are in big trouble for actually making a profit. They're only being kept around because the product's still such a miserable failure in Japan, really."

"Anyway, we're told that retail is a great way to burn money, and even with Bill's efforts in shifting his image from geek monopolist into geek philanthropist, we're still looking at fifty, maybe sixty money bins overflowing with dollar bills. And there's only so much cocaine** you can sift out of those."

"Microsoft's all about big, so the basic plan as it stands is to build a store on top of all existing Apple stores. We've already got plans to put in a larger Microsoft logo than the Apple one in order to obscure it, and rather than have customers float up some glass staircase, you'll instead climb up a naked glass statue of Steve Ballmer. Customers under the age of 18 are warned to stay away from the "Blue screen" area."

"All those expensive initiatives have left us with tons of stock still waiting to sell, and we see the Australian market as the ideal place to sell it -- you're all convinced you're still "early adopters of technology" despite having a broadband industry stuck in the 20th century -- the early half of the 20th century, really -- so we figure the mountain of Web TVs and Force Feedback Sidewinders will just walk off the shelves. Especially when we make ownership of a Force Feedback Sidewinder a compulsory step in WGA authentication under Windows 7...."

Bluescreen understands that all the necessary bribes have been paid to the relevant Sydney politicians***, and that it's just a matter of time before the helicopters start dropping the modular building blocks into place. As an added bonus, shoppers in the Daryl Lea store opposite will be able to watch the world's biggest game of Tetris take place as the Microsoft store drops into place above Apple.

While they're hoping that a whole line of the building won't in fact explode and then vanish during construction, they're also faced with a much bigger problem in establishing a retail establishment to take on the Apple style crowd. The biggest problem that Microsoft has hit has been in matching the storefront of the Apple store in terms of getting hold of enough glass. Bluescreen finds this a highly unusual state of affairs. You'd think after all these years, Microsoft would have some experience in installing Windows.

* Bluescreen spent a year in tech support. Bluescreen has suffered enough to know about these things.. Bluescreen also has to acknowledge G.L as the source of that observation. She knows who she is.
** Look, Snopes believes it, so why shouldn't Bluescreen?
*** Allegedly, of course. Bluescreen doesn't want to get sued, or anything...

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Alex Kidman gazes deeply into the inane world of big tech for APC every week. In other words, it's satire... we take no responsibility for your kernel crashing.