Could they be more blatant?

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Way to innovate there Microsoft! If anything, this will likely boost Apple sales. :)

Microsoft has no shame! You would think they would have created something a bit more different. Instead they copied Apple again! ahhahahahaha..... No shame at all.

you're being way to hard on them. it's called "innovation".

I keep recalling how Engadget Windows sycophants were saying that they wouldn't be caught dead in an Apple store opening because the people were such brainwashed sheep to be excited over clapping and high-fiving, wearing of f** Apple T-shirts and all the rest of the c*** associated with the Apple Cult of Sheeple. Now Microsoft is slavishly duplicating the whole experience for Windows users. It's like Microsoft took footage of Apple openings and choreographed everything to a T. Apple should have patented the Opening Retail Store Experience just so Microsoft couldn't blatantly rip it off. Haha.

Personally I'm happy for the Windows users that went if they had a good time, but it's just that some of these smug-a** Windows people can't see why anyone would enjoy something close to a store party and get some freebies, so they call Apple buyers iDiots for going and standing for store openings.

Wow, Chapstick! Man I wish I was there, NOT!!!!! You sure they said $500 gift bags, maybe more like 50 cent gift bags that will add up to $500 total for the whole day!
Steve Jobs sure got it right when he said Microsoft start your copy machines. They did it right down to the T copying Apple stores of old.

... for the Windows 7 Whopper article. I did my bit for the team on that one.

Yeah, we all know Windows sucks (and hey, did you see on the news about all those millions of Windows 7 launch parties? No? Oh wait that's right none happened).

We Apple fans should be GRATEFUL to MS for opening these stores. GRATEFUL I tell ya.

Why? Because the OVERWHELMING message these stores send consumers is this:

WE JUST COPY APPLE. WE DON'T HAVE ANY IDEAS OF OUR OWN.

Nobody like cheap knock-offs, and that (for some bizarre reason) is exactly what Microsoft has decided to position themselves as in the consumer space -- a cheap knock-off of Apple, *the technology leader in the computer industry.*

Cubic Zirconia looks just like diamonds, but diamond stores are still doing fine, kapish?

In the consumer space, MS has essentially ceded -- in ads prior to these stores and in the slavish copying of the stores -- that Apple is a better company with superior products. We don't have to keep saying it, MS is saying it *for* us. People are going to walk in, notice how INCREDIBLY similar the whole approach is, and feel like they're at the used car lot when they thought they were at the new car lot.

Bottom line: these stores are one big Apple commercial. Apple should be sending them flowers.

Check out those fake wood grain table tops ... totally different.

who are the two old guys in the back?

And why are the people in line clapping and forced to run the gauntlet just to find that there is no one there to fix their Gateway 2000.

Msft's death is near, they've just totally stopped trying.

- A

Where's the on-going coverage? Or at least the follow-up coverage? The store opens and, after the initial blitz (which itself was more like a spritz), drops off the news faster than reports of another BSOD.

Can someone please find an inept, bald blowhard to put some spin on this for me? I'm getting the nervous shakes here already.

The Microsoft Store is clearly The Microsoft Snore.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?