MS Store Redux

“Microsoft has a problem: Everyone in the world uses its products, but few of us appreciate them.”

Farhad Manjoo weighs in favorably, if unpersuasively, on the Microsoft store concept which I discussed earlier.  Manjoo’s main thesis appears to be a distillation of the above - that Microsoft needs retail to help humanize its products in the same way that Apple’s store provides an introduction to their corporate image.  Unfortunately, he ends up underlining rather than undermining what he cites as critics’ main objection to the idea, which is that, like the Zune, a Microsoft Store is a pale copy of the Apple reality.

I have no particular brief for Apple products, and I’ve never even bought an iPod.  But the essential problem with Manjoo’s argument is that it’s true that people don’t appreciate Microsoft products - but that’s a symptom, not a cause.  Manjoo notes regarding Apple stores: “With the help of a well-trained, enthusiastic staff, these demos add up to something sublime—walk through an Apple store and you’re bowled over by elegant simplicity.”  Unfortunately for MS, this is true not because the stores are elegantly and simply designed (although they are), it’s true because that core concept is built into every Apple product.  The stores are an extension of their devices.  Apple sells the Apple Experience.  Microsoft, needless to say, does not have this advantage; their products may be great, but no one would mistake them for jewels of design.  Thus, better PR isn’t going to help Microsoft here; their fundamental brand identity is, for better or worse, the PC guy from the commercials.  If you prettied them up and substituted them in the same Apple store with a changed logos, at best it would likely prove useless and at worst, consumers would probably think of it as a trick: MS trying to blatantly put its finger on the scales.

Manjoo seems to realize this.  He states next that MS’s original retail outlet failed because “[w]hat it lacked was personality—especially a gregarious, knowledgeable band of employees to help customers learn about the company’s products.”  Microsoft doesn’t really have the type of cultish follower that Apple does, in large part because the 800 lb. gorilla doesn’t inspire them.  But again, Manjoo seems to be arguing that Microsoft needs to “find” them; a possibility foreclosed by the simple nature of the company’s business strategy.  Stores lacked personality because Microsoft lacked - and lacks - a distinct personality.  Slavishly copying Apple store concepts won’t fix that.

Finally, there are enormous logistical hurdles to this type of issue.  Apple doesn’t just make an OS - it makes and/or certifies enormous amounts of hardware and software that go around it.  As a result, the complexities of a PC are exponentially greater; if you have a problem, MS probably can’t charge “$200″ to fix it simply because of those issues… not to mention the fact that they’re ill-equipped to troubleshoot conflicts with, say, a new video card outside of their purview.

In the end, Manjoo’s column is an exercise in wishful thinking: a vague hope that if Microsoft were not Microsoft but Apple, that if things weren’t the same that they would be different, and all would be well.  Microsoft and Apple models are both valid, and I don’t disparage either company here.  But I do take issue with the faddish tendency to copy the latest success of the moment without a clear understanding of the alignment between all elements of its strategy required for success.