Today, Nicole and I visited one of our favorite places, the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto. The Stanford Shopping center is great. The stores are top-notch, the mall has a lot of great places to eat, and it’s outdoors so you get to walk around and enjoy beautiful Palo Alto. Today, we noticed something really cool: A brand new Microsoft Store is being built. The store is truly huge. Check out the pictures below! It’s right next to the Apple Store but is several orders of magnitude larger. The signs say the store is opening on April, 19.
I’m a huge fan of Microsoft adCenter and look forward to seeing how their store does. The retail strategy has certainly worked for Apple, so there’s no doubt that it could also help propel Microsoft to the next level. This particular store is exciting because of it’s size and location. In the heart of Silicon Valley, Microsoft’s new store is sure to provide great exposure and marketing for Microsoft’s suite of products.
Images in this post © PPCIan.com
For those that have been to Stanford Mall, it looks like the Microsoft store is going to extend from where the old McDonald’s was around the corner to where Max Mara used to be. The size of the store looks in line with the size of the Apple store on University Ave in Palo Alto, and will be much larger than the Apple store at the mall. It will be interesting to check out the store once it opens. I don’t think people connect as much with Microsoft products the same way they do with Apple. However, most people use Microsoft everyday – Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, etc.
Definitely, the Apple Retail Store is a huge fan. I think the whole experience and branding is just outstanding. It’s very smart for MS doing the same, but they need to make it cool and the branding stick.
I live in East Bay and love to visit this store when I am in Palo Alto. Thanks, Ian!
That’s awesome, Kent, to hear you’re in the Bay Area. Will you be at SMX West? Perhaps we could connect at that event? Thanks for the comment!
All the best,
Ian
I wonder when the Google stores will start to pop up…
That would be awesome! I have been to the Google store on Google’s Mountain View campus, and it’s amazing. It would be really neat to see Google open up retail stores like Apple and Microsoft. Thanks for all the great comments, Collabo.
All the best,
Ian