Microsoft confirms that it’s going to open retail stores. No doubt they want to mimic the success of Apple’s flashy stores (currently 251 and counting). When Apple launched stores, they brought in an exec from The Gap. Microsoft, in its effort to be trendy, will spearhead its stores with a former VP from…Wal-Mart? Yes, that’ll give them a cutting-edge look. 

The article I read in Electronista had a lot of interesting comments. This is one of the great things about the current web:you read a story, and then comment on it, preferably in a snide tone. The comments can be great. Hare are some comments from this article (especially like the last one).

• “That’s about the only Apple strategy left for them to copy.”
• “Can you imagine their Genius Bar, lined up with pissed-off Visa users and Zune users and all the other crap they have made poorly?”
• “Doesn’t Microsoft know that EVERY store NOT an Apple store is a pro-Microsoft store?”
• “The whole freaking world is a Microsoft store. When you walk into BestBuy or WallMart’s computer sections, it’s Microsoft land. The computers, the software titles, the peripherals–it’s all PC.”
• “Would love to see how badly they try to copy Apple.”
• “I can almost picture it…the all glass front is going to be covered in tacky stickers.”
• “Careful if you use the bathrooms. They’re a quarter to get into, but fifty cents to get out.”
• “I love that this guy came from Walmart. Perfect fit for MS.”
• “MS has a guy from Wal-mart. Which means the MS store will have overflowing shelves, stuff spilled out into the aisle, product all over the place as if no one knows exactly what goes where, product thrown on shelves as if the employees didn’t care. Oh, and immigrant cleaning staff that’s locked in at night so they don’t steal anything.”
• “Microsoft products combined with that endlessly inviting and appealing Wal-Mart shopping experience. Sounds like an instant home run. In a football game, but a home run nevertheless.”