Ben Buckman.net

Paul Andrews writes in TechFlash about Microsoft's foray into retail:

It's important to understand Microsoft is not going into retail because it wants to (otherwise it would've done so long ago), but because it has to. Windows (and the operating system in general) is fading into irrelevancy. The upgrade cycle as a profit center is pretty much over; .xx upgrades are free, and users have learned to just wait and do a major upgrade when they buy a new computer. And Microsoft's once-proud reputation is in tatters. Zune is a joke. Vista is a crime. The Apple ads have done wonders for ridicule as a business strategy. Tech watchers long in tooth (like me) think of Microsoft today the way we thought of IBM in the latter '80s and early '90s: Big, slow, laughably clueless. Back then, the ultra-rad company was Microsoft.  [...]

My one caveat involves an imitation Genius Bar for Microsoft stores. If all those suffering Windows hordes get the idea they can bring their computers in to fix, the whole store concept will blow up in Microsoft's face. There's a reason no other retail presence in the world has something like a Genius Bar, yet it's the single biggest factor in the Apple stores' resounding success. Microsoft, whose customer support over the years has been just plain dismal, desperately needs service like what Apple offers through its warranty and Genius Bar, but it will have to involve something other than direct customer involvement. That Windows hairball is just too gnarly to unravel in a 10-minute appointment.