Microsoft Store = Apple’s Carbon Copy?

What do you think when you hear “Apple Store?” Sleek aluminum-meets-glass exterior, clean modern Swedish-influenced interior, products set out for everyone to play with alongside a suite of helpful staff that can help you with just about anything related to Apple Inc’s suite of hardware and software. Throw in a “Genius Bar” staffed by, well, geniuses who can solve any tech conundrum you can throw at them, and you’ve just described the perfect marketing tool Apple has created to both pull in new customers and keep current Mac-heads happy.Enter Microsoft. A company that has been playing catch-up to Apple’s “think different” approach to technology, design and user experience for the past decade, Microsoft has finally decided to unleash its own retail stores upon the world.

The raging battle between these two factions is nothing new. Everyone knows someone who either loves or hates Apple [or Microsoft], who swears by their computing machine as “the best platform,” denouncing the other as junk. Apple has gained much market momentum through wildly successul advertising campaigns for their iPod, iPhone, iTunes and Mac product lines that have become instantly recognizable as “Apple.” As Apple’s market share has steadily climbed in the home PC market, as well as dominating the portable music player market, Microsoft has taken notice, having attempted several different marketing strategies to pull attention from Apple products onto their own.

It all began with a downplayed advertising campaign which was to star Jerry Seinfeld, everyone’s favorite sitcom schmuck, interacting with former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. In theory the idea was great, but the comedy Microsoft strove for never delivered. The commercials were a dud, and were poorly received by the public as generally being “unfunny.” A more successful campaign, with the tagline “It’s A PC” focused on the general consensus that Microsoft-powered computers cost less than Apple-powered computers followed the failed Seinfeld project. The ads followed regular people into a big-box retailer or mall shopping for a computer, which always drew attention to Apple’s “pretty but expensive” machines, concluding with the person buying a PC and saving a bundle of money. The ads worked fairly well, despite the fact that the specifications of the lower-priced PC were never directly compared to the [usually higher - and thus more expensive] specifications of the Apple computer in the commercial.

Microsoft’s latest attempt at pulling people into their stores after witnessing the obscene success of Apple’s retail business has come in the form of – you guessed it – the Microsoft Store. Yes, I know, the name is a bit abstract – they’re creative, ok? These stores are strikingly similar to Apple’s retail model in more ways than name. Modern industrial design, catchy product demonstrations, software classes and even a Genius Bar – wait, Microsoft is calling it an “Answer Bar” – these new retail stores are anything but a new concept.

In Microsoft’s favor, imitation is the highest form of flattery, although I’m hardly certain the folks at Apple Retail are patting themselves on the back for a concept well executed. Capitalism encourages competition, and this is exactly what Microsoft is attempting, however such a blatant show of copy-catting seems to be slightly off-putting.Will Microsoft’s new retail store campaign be a success? Will Apple’s steady climb in technology market share begin to diminish? Will Linux pwn the both of them and dominate the home computing scene by the year 2012? I don’t have the answers, but I can’t wait to find out.