Yeah I think it misses the rationale for the Apple stores. Jobs felt that Apple products were different, and weren’t getting a good sales experience by having big box store employees sell them.
This proved a correct thesis for the apple store, and then the stores grew as apple built mass market products.
Microsoft’s product lineup does fairly well. But it is not mass market. And while they are different from PCs, they still run Windows, which is widely familiar among laptop buyers. Further, retail is less important a channel than it used to be. Microsoft can market its products directly online. So even if Microsoft has some of the disAdvantages Apple had, it doesn’t really have the full use case.
This proved a correct thesis for the apple store, and then the stores grew as apple built mass market products.
Microsoft’s product lineup does fairly well. But it is not mass market. And while they are different from PCs, they still run Windows, which is widely familiar among laptop buyers. Further, retail is less important a channel than it used to be. Microsoft can market its products directly online. So even if Microsoft has some of the disAdvantages Apple had, it doesn’t really have the full use case.