

Microsoft Store's Alternative Agenda - sonabinu
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2412890,00.asp

======
mgkimsal
"You just had to know that the executives in Redmond looked at their own
experience and also thought of the Gateway stores and laughed to themselves."

I got so tired of hearing the "Gateway already tried retail stores!" 'insight'
back when Apple first opened stores. _You could not buy a computer and take it
home that day from a Gateway store_. It wasn't a retail store - it was a
showroom - there's a massive difference, and it was lost on pretty much every
pundit at the time.

As for MS using retail stores as a big focus group, good on them. I would
desperately like to see MS get more involved in creating better total end to
end experiences for users; if that means by passing previous hardware partners
and doing it themselves, so be it. I don't pretend MS _wants_ to get more in
to hardware, but we've seen with MS and with Android, when you let anyone put
out your software on any hardware they want, you end up with a lot of bad
experiences which ends up tarnishing the software brand more than the hardware
brand.

I remember reading somewhere (here?) that Asus (or Acer?) wasn't too happy
about MS getting in to the hardware tablet game. So what? What is Asus going
to do? Stop selling Windows? They're not doing a great job in the tablet space
anyway - 'lost sales' in that area won't be a big deal. And where are they
going to go for an OS? Linux? Great! Let Asus/Acer/others start investing in
Linux on laptops/desktops (finally).

------
j_s
> By giving visitors a $5 coupon or some trinket, it could pull aside
> potential customers and ask them questions about the store, the products,
> and the experience.

So, yeah, they _could_ do that. Thanks for the insight John C. Dvorak, though
there's no indication at all Microsoft is actually even considering this
'alternative agenda'!

------
saturdaysaint
All of this presumes that MS has a five-year runway to figure out the consumer
market at their leisure. Do they though? If neither Surface and Windows Phone
have any traction through the holiday season, I don't see how they'll find it
in 2013.

~~~
mgkimsal
They can't reprice these too much without causing a huge issue, so they'd
might need to do yet another product, but a surface pro at, say $299, with the
keyboard bundled, would do well.

That's a price point where a lot of corporate people can get one to test,
without needing approval (under $500 vs > $1000).

"But they'll lose money!"

They've already lost the money (it's already spent). It's a matter of whether
they can get marketshare with the money that's been spent, or whether it will
go down in flames.

Look at HP TouchPads. They were doomed at $499, but flew off the shelved at
fire sale $149/$199 prices, even when people knew it was an 'end of life'
product with no hope of a long term ecosystem in the future.

I guess I don't understand why it's acceptable for xbox and game consoles to
lose money on hardware, but make it up in game sales, but for tablets, it's
not acceptable to lose money on the initial hardware, and make the profit on
software. Seems a double standard at the very least.

~~~
kvb
Because the attach rate isn't high enough for tablets. As far as I'm aware,
even Apple's not making a ton on their app store (I mean, it's profitable, but
it's a pittance compared to their hardware profits).

I don't understand your emphasis on market share. Sure, there are some network
effects (more users <-> more developers), but what's the point in losing money
to gain market share, especially if you set an anchor on a price point that
won't ever make you money? Apple's losing market share to Android, but I doubt
that fact keeps them up late at night, because they're making most of the
profits anyway.

What evidence is there that Surface is losing them any money? Maybe it's not
selling as well as they'd hoped, but that doesn't mean it's in the red - maybe
it's not selling well because of supply chain issues, or the lack of channels
through which they're selling.

~~~
mgkimsal
even so - the current model is _not_ working for anyone but apple. how many
more touchpad/surface/playbook attempts do people need to go through (losing
_billions_ in the process) before people _try_ something else?

MS is well-known for developer tools. With enough installed base for MS/win
tablets, the ecosystem around developer tools might help make up the
difference in some measure.

Something's gotta give, and continuing to charge at the iPad market with "hey,
we'll charge $499+ for something with _0_ ecosystem around it (surface RT)" is
bordering on fiscal negligence.

------
bajillion
Page fails on iPhone :

<http://i.imgur.com/MQ0IU.png>

~~~
mikeash
Impressive. It takes serious effort to screw up that badly.

~~~
thedrbrian
Also pressing desktop version just takes you to the desktop homepage.

Relevant XKCD <http://m.xkcd.com/869/>

