Microsoft’s Folly: The Blue Store of Death

I tried to write this article seriously. After all I’m an executive management consultant and an analyst; this is what I do for a living.

Even Leander chimed in, “Leigh, you’re becoming a parody of yourself, a crank only hauled out to rant about stuff and then tucked back in the closet.”

I want you all to know I tried, I really did. But this notion of Microsoft opening up stores is so Dog-Damned Stupid, it makes my fricken head want to explode.

Follow me after the jump to find out why.

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In his book, ‘Inside Steve’s Brain‘, our own Leander Kahney wrote a whole chapter about the formula for the success of the Apple Stores. Too bad the strategic brain trust at Microsoft didn’t even manage to get past the fist page. They just read: “Upscale malls, you say… Hurrm… Good idea… (no percentage for you meester Kahney, bwaaa haaa haaa!!)”

Of course, if they’d have read on, they might have gotten to the part where it’s considered a good suggestion to have a product people actually want to buy.

(Oh yes he did… he went there – ed)

You need to be honest with yourself in business; nobody wants to buy the stuff Microsoft is selling. Windows and MS Office are like the socks and sweaters of the consumer electronics world, i.e. gifts you’d be pissed off about getting.

Tip to MS Marketing Executives: just because lots and lots of people buy your stuff, doesn’t mean they want buy your stuff. They do it because the have to, or are given no choice by the OEM’s you got tied to your purse strings.

Your products are like auto insurance, something people have to own, but don’t necessarily want to, and resent having to spend money on.

Of course, that’s probably the genesis of this whole idea; it wasn’t the Apple store, that’s just a coincidence. Steve Ballmer saw those Progressive Insurance commercials and said: “We needs us some stores like that.”

They’re not real, Steve, there’s no quirky, nerdy, but still really attractive girl, in the mall who is gonna sell you insurance in a box.

Speaking of boxes, what exactly is Microsoft going to sell? They’re a software company, what’s the customer experience there; what’s the merchandising plan, rows upon rows of boxes?

Do they envision customers crying out: Ooooh nice packaging?

To demonstrate their software, perhaps they’re going to ally with Dell, and piss off HP, Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba and Sony. Or they could demo their software on super stylish Sony Viao, and irritate all the others? Maybe to be fair they’ll have one of each maker, like this Tower of Freekin’ Babel of technology, that while chaotically crazy is at least an honest depiction of the Windows™ World™.

Maybe they’re thinking they’ll sell Zunes? They stock one store with Zunes they will be more media players in that outlet than there are in the wild. Try again.

I’m not saying those stores won’t have traffic, they will have mad-crazy foot traffic. They will have traffic counts the likes of which even Apple will ultimately envy.

I want you to picture 18 months after the launch of these ‘Blue Stores of Death’, there will be lines out the door, every Dog-Damned day will look like an iPhone launch –until you look closer and see that the people in line look like comic-con rejects.

But it’s actually worse than that, because this line is like the unholy union of the DMV and the frickin Post Office, and everyone there is lined up for the Guru bar, shouting in unison: “Where the fuck is the ‘Any Key’?”

Dear lord save us, for we are clearly too Dog-Damned stupid to save ourselves.  Based on the stupid questions reportedly asked of Apple Geniuses, I am haunted by the probable suicide rate of Microsoft’s “Gurus”.

Now of course, I am being a little unfair. Sure, they may need to stock Zoloft in the candy dishes, but Microsoft does in fact have one product people are actually excited to buy. It’s called the XBOX 360, I have one and I love it.

Building on that successful product, as Apple did with the iPod, it sure would be nice to have a place where people could go to experience the XBOX 360, maybe try out games, talk to folks knowledgeable about the platform and media.

It would be genuinely awesome if there were such a place.

Oh wait!

Gamestop has 6200 of them and is opening 400 more this year alone.