TechWag

: Image via CrunchBase

If you have shopped for a PC lately, you know that you will get little to no support from any of the Big Box stores you go to. With the shutdown of Circuit City, and only a few big box retail stores open which are cutting back on staff, realistically Microsoft had to do something; this is not as bad as it sounds.

Of course we are going to want the Microsoft Store to be cooler than the Apple Store. Apple when it comes to retail does it right. When I bought my first ever apple, I sucked up at least an hour of the sales person time because I wanted to know if I could do things that I take for granted on the PC. The apple store person not only walked me through it, but when the purchase was done offered to open the box right then and there and help me set up the right left mouse click that I need (based on my PC habits), and show me how to do a video and a podcast from my own newly purchased box. In terms of what happened with the sale, not only was I pleasantly surprised, it was a wonderful experience. I had a wonderful experience at the Apple Store I shopped at.

Microsoft needs to meet and exceed that experience. Last time I shopped at a big box store for a PC, no one was interested in me, what I was doing, what questions I had, or offered to show me how to do something on the PC. The PC I bought was for audio and video, I picked the computer I thought would work with the Vista operating system, got it home, and the audio recording never worked, the Video never worked in terms of allowing other people to see me on the inbuilt web cam (all they got was a green screen). The company that made the PC has not updated the drivers to make any of this work. In fact it was not until I started playing with the Windows 7 beta that any of the audio or video worked at all. (Which got me to finally purchase a Mac, some things just needed to be done, and I needed a portable device).

What would have been great is if I could have had the same experience I had at the Apple store as I had with the big box store. While the notebook I bought with Vista was fundamentally broken from the start, it would have been great to know that before I walked out the door. I kept the note book so I could learn Vista; learn it enough to know that purchasing something fundamentally broken from the manufacturer (not necessarily Vista in this case) will create cross over purchases. Microsoft in its new retail setting needs to fix this disconnect between people, their opinions, and the actual products. Vista and Big Box stores with indifferent sales people was a boon for Apple, one they have been successful in taking advantage of.

Microsoft needs to bring the spark back, the joy in owning their systems (sorry that was a direct fan boy statement, in all I like Microsoft products, but have been drifting away from them over the last two years, from browsers to operating systems, my Microsoft use has been declining) and offer real people showing how to use Microsoft products. Of course they have to work, they have to be easy to use, and most importantly they have to be quick and streamlined. This might be the most important thing that Microsoft does, get to know their customers directly. The real question is not if this is a great idea, but will Microsoft listen to the pummeling that their sales people are going to get as people use this as an opportunity to while about Microsoft products.