14 DAY TRIAL // Just the past month Microsoft was touting the opening of dozens more Microsoft Stores, and now Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer offered some actual details on the company’s plans. During the software giant’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) 2010 in June 2010 it was Kevin Turner, Microsoft Chief Operating Officer that promised additional Microsoft-branded retail outlets would open their doors to the public in more locations across the United States in the future. According to Ballmer, users in Chicago, Minneapolis and Bellevue will be among those that will have the option to buy right from a Microsoft Store, although the CEO did not say when they’ll be able to do so.
“We will announce that we're opening up some new stores at the Oakbrook Center near Chicago, the Mall of America in Minneapolis, we'll be opening one here in Bellevue Square, our employees kind of thought that they should get the first store, and I didn't think that -- nor did Kevin -- think that would be very representative. So, Kevin Turner and David Porter [Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Retail Stores], who we brought in to run the store efforts, you can see here we'll now have a number of locations. We're open in Denver and San Diego, Mission Viejo, Scottsdale, Bellevue, et cetera. And we'll continue to make openings and kind of drive this as a key part of our consumer strategy,” Ballmer promised.
Microsoft’s CEO underlined that the company’s own retail shops serve to tackle any distribution challenges. The software giant is not a company that traditionally focused on bringing its products directly to end users, as opposite to Apple. But it looks like Microsoft has taken a page out of the book of its rival in Cupertino, and is looking as Microsoft Store as a channel designed to deliver its innovation to market as soon as possible without having to depend on third-party entities.
“The goal here is not, per se, to sell all the world's PCs, but we do sell PCs in the store. But much as we engage on the enterprise side, in consulting, in services and support in order to make sure that we can be at the leading edge, we can really get close to our consumer, the customer, the enterprise. We want to do the same thing with the consumer customer with devices. We want to be absolutely sure that you can see the latest and greatest not because we're going to dig some big profit hole. I don't believe in that, Kevin doesn't believe in that, but in a way that may not be the number-one profit driver for the company, but certainly that doesn't lose money, we have a touch point and a distribution point and a showcase point with consumers,” Ballmer added.
Ballmer denied that Microsoft Store represent what he referred to as idle marketing activity. Microsoft seems keep on opening more and more stores around the US, although the company won’t provide any additional specific information on “what’s in stored” for customers.
“We're opening stores to sell stuff, and we've opened now our first few stores, and the reaction that we've gotten in the communities where we've opened has been really quite positive. We've seen nicely growing revenue through those stores. It'll be great to have an exciting line of phones that we can put in those stores. Turns out, you can get a whole lot more revenue per square foot if you're selling something other than just PCs, Xboxes and software,” Ballmer said.
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