The new $300 million Windows marketing campaign is not limited at Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates, plus I'm a PC and Live without Walls advertising. Microsoft is in fact ready to get its hands dirty and to be the first to analyze the way consumers experience Windows products and the Windows  brand at retail. This is where the company's Retail Experience Center comes in. Built at the Willows Campus in Redmond, REC is designed as a laboratory to test Windows in a “retail environment”. Miel Van Opstal, Microsoft Evangelist, denied that Microsoft plans to open its own retail outlets.

Van Opstal instead argues that the Center is not a real store, but merely a location designed to permit the Redmond giant to test Windows retail scenarios in order to find the best model which will subsequently be implemented by its retail partners. “Microsoft is studying how would-be consumers shop in the mock-up store. We’ve embarked on a long-term effort to learn and implement new ways to enhance the PC-buying experience at retail by making the process clear, simple and easy to best meet consumers’ needs,” Van Opstal explained.

Unlike Apple, a company which controls all the aspects of its products from development to retail, Microsoft is dependent on the ecosystem of partners for selling Windows-based PCs. Furthermore, the Redmond giant is not giving any indication that it is moving away from a model which insofar has proved successful.

Kellyn Smith, group marketing manager for Windows Channel & Partner Marketing revealed that “Windows is stepping up our efforts at retail in a big way. We’re on a mission to deliver world-class PC shopping experiences to Windows consumers around the globe". “In order to invest wisely, we needed a laboratory to test our ideas. We’re dropping our target consumers into the REC, studying their shopping behaviors and buying patterns, and ultimately fine-tuning the assets we create and the Windows retail investment portfolio to optimize for returns.”