Can Microsoft Store pare Apples appeal?
By SHARON PIAN CHAN THE SEATTLE TIMES SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.–Blink an eye, and the Microsoft Store could be mistaken for an Apple Store. The sign over the doorway has no letters, only a Windows logo instead of an Apple silhouette. Wood bar tables display desktops and laptops, and Zunes and Windows Mobile phones replace iPods and iPhones. The walls are painted stark white to showcase the products. Where Apple’s stores have customer-service areas called “Genius Bars,” Microsoft’s have “Answer Bars” at the back. Staff wear Apple-style shirts in primary hues. Staff members may even look familiar; some were recruited from Apple stores. “I think it’s pretty cool, but they kind of copied the Mac store,” said Spencer Doan, 19, who was in the Mission Viejo, Calif., store recently playing checkers with a friend on a Microsoft Surface, a coffee-table touch-screen computer. Opening retail stores is another move to make the software giant appear warmer and cuddlier. In October, Microsoft opened the fir
