Imagine a store front designed with the same painstaking attention to detail as Windows itself appearing in a mall near an Apple store.

This could be a good thing for Apple.

Imagine a store front designed with the same painstaking attention to detail as Windows itself appearing in a mall near an Apple store.

Yes, they will “not mimic Apple’s design aesthetic.” Instead there will be a number of stores within a store:

Starter
Home Premium
Professional
Ultimate
Mobile (a push cart that is moved around the mall)

Okay, it’s Mano a Mano (hand to hand) not Mano y Mano (hand and hand).

That aside, does Microsoft really want to highlight the differences between Apple and Microsoft?

There’s a reason the Detlef Shrempf basketball camp isn’t held right next door to the Larry Bird camp.

Yes, they will “not mimic Apple’s design aesthetic.” Instead there will be a number of stores within a store:

Starter
Home Premium
Professional
Ultimate

You’ll be free to enter the ‘Starter’ area, but there will be cover charges to enter any of the more premium areas, where you get to see the really good stuff.

Imagine a store front designed with the same painstaking attention to detail as Windows itself appearing in a mall near an Apple store.

Once you enter the store the only way to get out of the store will be to find the door marked Enter, once through that door you will have the choice of Exit, Re-Enter or Take a Rest.

Jokes aside I wonder what brand PCs they will be selling, they couldn’t possibly stock models from every manufacturer. Will those left out of the shelf space see this as an unfair advantage by whomever gets the deal?

They will only be showing products, not actually selling them. Like the Dell Kiosk and never opened stores or the Gateway stores that have all been closed. You could look and touch and order but take with you. Also many companies have clauses that don’t allow competitors from having stores within a certain distance from them. also how many malls will want to piss of Apple? They get a lot of traffic because of the Apple Store. The average Apple store sales is around $20 million. In Santa Barbara CA the city got around $200,000 in sales tax revenue. I believe that the Fifth avenue Store does something like $8.5 million each week or around $440 million per year.