Microsoft Store in Santa Clara opening this fall

By Tom Warren, on 18th Aug 11 11:13 pm with 51 Comments

Microsoft revealed its latest retail store location on Thursday.

The next retail store will open in Westfield Valley Fair, Santa Clara California in fall. Microsoft’s latest store plans for Santa Clara see them set up shop close to Apple once again. Apple has a store in Valley Fair too, which originally opened in November 2001. Microsoft will open its new store in Santa Clara, California by the end of the year, the fifth store to open in California. Microsoft’s Kevin Turner, chief operating officer, revealed recently that the company plans to expand its stores across the United States within the next few years. Turner showed off a map of the new stores dotted across the United States. Microsoft currently has 11 stores open in the United States.

Microsoft’s new 75 stores appear to be spread across the east and west coast of the United States. The company is rumored to be launching stores in New York and Orlando later this year too. The Microsoft Stores offer all of the Microsoft products found through online retailers and inside major retail chains, including keyboards and mice, Windows 7, Xbox 360 and many more products. Apple currently has 237 stores in the United States alone, and 329 total stores worldwide, including 30 in the UK and 19 in Canada.

Thanks to WinRumors reader Matthew S for the news tip

Microsoft Store Santa Clara, California

Anonymous

Time to open in the East Bay Microsoft!
Guest

HP news Tom? Sorta worth a post, no?
- Anonymous
  
  Maybe Tom doesn’t care. Like the rest of the world. That wasn’t using webOS.
- Guest
  
  Guess you missed the coverage all over the web tonight. Including at several MS-focused sites.
- Anonymous
  
  Maybe they are going for hits and aren’t as discerning.
- Guest
  
  How do you get hits if nobody cares?
- Anonymous
  
  Who said they were successful? I’m pointing out a possible difference in motivation. If everyone else is covering it, what is your hard-on about Tom covering it all about?
- Guest
  
  Because I’m interested in his take on it as well as those of the commenters.
- Anonymous
  
  Actually Tom doesn’t offer much opinon here. He just reports facts or substantial rumors worth mentioning. I actually appreciate that because these days there are so many kids/hecks writing bad/stupid/hyperbole opinion pieces that add no value or even negative value to my time and, I think, even their web sites.
- Anonymous
  
  WinRumors = Windows Rumors, basically Microsoft Rumors + Posts.
  
  HP is irrelevant… Unless you say something like, HP is back to being Microsoft’s full-time bitch.
- Anonymous
  
  Anyone commenting as “guest” amounts to nothing more than a heckler in my book.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001990736337 Baka Chan
  
  it’s a valid request. HP is considering selling its hardware(PC) part of the business? if that’s the case it has implication on Windows powered PC sales etc
- GP007
  
  You mean like IBM did years ago? And this changed the PC industry how? Oh wait, it didn’t, someone else to stepped in to meet the demand. Fact is HP doesn’t have a clue what it wants to do, it’s tablets are a flow, WebOS is bust and they want to ditch the PC because they’ve got a roaring portalbe/mobile success to work with? Or wait, are they just going to sell printers again? I hear they’re making a killing on selling overpriced ink still.
- Guest
  
  Valid point but times have changed. When IBM vacated PCs nobody thought PCs were dying. On the contrary, PC sales were booming. Also there was no legitimate post pc threat then. HP is exiting because PC sales are declining and because they see a shift, consumer focused for now, to tablets. Big difference.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001990736337 Baka Chan
  
  @facebook-100001990736337:disqus GP007 – Apart from pointing out the obvious, what else do you have to offer? HP is a big player in PC sales. It’s not because HP will move to WebOS (which is/isn’t happening ), it’s the fact that they will no longer sell windows PCs – which is a blow to MS if it happens.
  As guest says ‘Times have changed’.Anyway, PC’s Hardware are rather shit (Windows 7 is good), they need better designed like MACs
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001990736337 Baka Chan
  
  @facebook-100001990736337:disqus GP007 – Apart from pointing out the obvious, what else do you have to offer? HP is a big player in PC sales. It’s not because HP will move to WebOS (which is/isn’t happening ), it’s the fact that they will no longer sell windows PCs – which is a blow to MS if it happens.
  As guest says ‘Times have changed’.Anyway, PC’s Hardware are rather shit (Windows 7 is good), they need better designed like MACs
- Guest
  
  Whereas an anonymous disqus id is instant credibility?
- Anonymous
  
  No, just more.
- Guest
  
  You’re right. Their largest OEM deciding to get out of the PC business, in large part because of the “secular shift” in consumer PC sales due to the success of iPad, isn’t really relevant to MS or Windows.
- Anonymous
  
  You know what I read today on WinRumors I didn’t read anywhere else? That Microsoft was opening a store in Santa Clara. Do you know what I read on EVERY OTHER TECH SITE IN THE UNIVERSE? That HP was exiting the PC business and webOS is dead.
  
  Now tell me, what exactly is it that you expect Tom to say THAT EVERY OTHER SITE hasn’t said already?
  
  If you are that hard-up for something to do, go masterbate. The time will pass faster.
- Guest
  
  You can’t seem to keep your story straight about whether nobody cares or in fact everybody cares except you.
- WMfan
  
  And yet I have not read that Molly Wood has said after trying WP7 phone for two weeks that it is not good enough.
- GP007
  
  Yet HP has no tablet/slate or overall iPad competitor since the Touchpad is such a huge flop and they’re killing off WebOS to, so what exactly is HP going to “shift” over to now without PC? Back to printers only? Or I guess there’s room in the world for a 2nd IBM today, that could always work out.
- Guest
  
  http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-hp-revenue-by-segment-2011-8
  
  I’m more concerned about implications for MS.
- Anonymous
  
  I’m not concerned at all. The landscape is changing and ARM is becoming the go to architecture for OSes and consumers. MS was wise to see this ahead of time and has Windows 8 (with apps and programs) running on ARM and SoC. IF MS loses HP’s business, they easily gain it back through Nokia, HTC, Samsung and others.
- Guest
  
  You obviously have no concept of where and how MS generates it’s revenue. Losing HP’s business would be catastrophic to MS’s results. Luckily, that business was in some ways more at risk under a WebOS committed HP than it might be wherever it goes (or if it just dissapates to Dell and others. MS was a laggard in porting to ARM, and none of the vendors you mentioned are committed to W8-based tablets. And neither W8 tablet licenses, nor WP7 phone ones, come close to replacing the revenue from a standard PC.
- Anonymous
  
  First off, MS hasnt lost HP’s business. Im simply saying that even if it had there would be others added to the fold that would make up that business. Again, you’re not thinking about the changing landscape leaning toward mobile devices and ARM/SoC. You will see that everyone of the OEMs Ive listed is on board with W8 in due time.
- Anonymous
  
  nope, If hp quit the others will fill it’s place , it is so simple.
  Dell , sony ,asus , and … will have a larger slice of cake.
- Anonymous
  
  Do you not realize that HP is not just a PC and printer manufacturer? Printing technology patents and such. Consulting services (EXPENSIVE). Integration services. The list goes on. Why would anyone want to remain in a 4% margin business with no growth, especially when services, where the growth is, have 50+% margin.
Anonymous

I would definitely like to see a shop open up in Salt Lake City, Utah! Make it store #76 Microsoft and give the Apple Store some heat
- Anonymous
  
  I second this. We should start a SLC Microsoft Store movement! (maybe we’ll get some free stuff too)
- http://www.appatic.com Avatar X
  
  There will be one in Salt Lake City. just that not until late 2012 at best i am afraid.
Anonymous

i do not care, come to ORLANDO!
- http://www.appatic.com Avatar X
  
  There will be one there. same for maimi.
- Anonymous
  
  thanks man, but when?
- http://www.appatic.com Avatar X
  
  Could be there in November of this year. Otherwise they may wait until late jan – early february of next year.
http://twitter.com/jimmyfal Jimmy Fallon

Who says MS stood silent while Apple bashed MS with those Vista commercials? This is their answer, lets put the stores side by side, and let the customers fall where they may.
- Guest
  
  “Who says MS stood silent while Apple bashed MS with those Vista commercials?”
  
  Um, everyone, because in fact they did stand silent. And their reputation was brutalized. And Vista failed. And OS X share has increased every quarter since Vista launched. MS retail stores are just MS’s normal too little, too late. They will help with consumer perception a bit, but they’re not profitable. So every one MS builds costs them money, while every one Apple builds leads the retail industry in margin per square foot. Who wins in the long run?
  
  MS cannot beat Apple by trying to out Apple them. You may not get that. And clearly Ballmer doesn’t either. But it’s true nevertheless.
- Anonymous
  
  Yet MS came right back with Windows 7 and totally killed Macs from a sales and userbase standpoint. And Apple still doesnt have more than 5% global marketshare. Even MS has more than that in the phone space.
- Guest
  
  Apple has gained share with Mac every quarter but one for the past five years. In Nrth America they have around 10% of the market by units and 50% of total industry profit. They were the only vendor to grow in Europe during Q2, and if you add Mac plus iPad sales together worldwide for Q2, Apple surpassed HP as #1 “PC” vendor. W7 has done very well and done a lot to restore some of MS’s lost credibility. But the damage was done and even W7 hasn’t been able to arrest the steady growth of Mac share. Of course the rise of tablets and iOS are making this W7/OS X thing kinda moot. Windows main competition is now iOS and Android-based tablets.
- Anonymous
  
  It sounds good but Apple themselves said they only have 54 million active OS X user at there last major event. This is all versions of OS X combined. Once you start breaking it down by version, clearly this munber drops even more. MS has sold more than 400 million W7 licenses in less than 2 years. With Macs having about 5% marketshare WW, I dont think MS is worried too much about Macs slow growth, they’re simply not a threat. You talk about the rise of tablets – an area that W8 addresses and Apple has only sold 30 million in 2 iterations thus far.
- Anonymous
  
  Very well said. I keep forgetting about the profit per square foot metric.
Anonymous

When is Micorosoft coming to New York? We’re like the biggest city in the world and don’t even have 1 store, yet California has like five or six stores (I don’t even know, I lost count).
Anonymous

I’m sure the MSFT stores will be good for MSFT. Average consumers are easily lured by bright & shiny stores. Oooh and ahh type stuff. Just as easily as they went to Apple, they can be lured back to PC-land.
- Guest
  
  it took a decade and a series of successes for Apple to go from loser back to cool again. No reason to expect that MS can do it any faster, if at all.
- Anonymous
  
  Yes but MS isn’t exactly starting from loser status now are they. Back in 2001, Apple wasn’t even talked about or known by most people, everyone knows who MS is and their Windows, Office and Xbox business (with Kinect) will do them great. The problem with some chains is that they simple favor brands over others…there have been many interweb stories coming out that even when someone goes into mobile carrier stores asking for Windows Phone, the reps instantly tries to sell them something else…not because its not good (customer satisfaction on WPs are higher than Android), but because the REP prefers something else. It should be very helpful for consumers to get educated on what a product really is and what it can do and these MS stores will be just that.
Kirkrichieramos

How bout’ one in Southern California?
- Jj
  
  not sure if you are being sarcastic, but there are already 4 stores in So Cal (Costa Mesa, Century City, Mission Viejo, San Diego Fashion Island)
Anonymous

MS, can we please get a PA store sometime soon.
Shiro

I’d like to see a store in downtown Sacramento, the seat of California’s State government.
Anonymous

Photocopiers anyone?