Microsoft Store

Microsoft Store employees make a peace offering to their Apple Store peers in holiday video

Following Apple’s holiday ad featuring Stevie Wonder and Andra Day, rival Microsoft today released its own holiday-themed commercial in which employees of its retail store on New York City’s Fifth Avenue are shown spreading the message of peace outside of Apple’s iconic glass cube store.

As reported by AdAge, Microsoft flew store employees from around the country to New York City to film this commercial on November 16.

Microsoft Stores offering free 1-year Office 365 subscriptions, Amazon taking 33% off

If you visit a Microsoft Store today and bring your iPad with you, Microsoft may give you a free one-year subscription to Office 365, a $99 value.

Following yesterday’s release of Office for iPad with native Excel, Word and PowerPoint applications, the Windows giant’s retail stores are now promoting the apps by giving away a 1-year Office 365 subscription to the first 50 people who turn up at the door and bring in an iPad with them.

If you don’t have the time to visit your nearby Microsoft Store or there’s no store in your area, Amazon is now offering a discounted annual Office 365 subscription for $67…

Apple building ‘visually stunning’ Palo Alto store next to Microsoft

While most Apple retail locations which grab headlines are in China or New York City, the iPhone maker is working hard to finish work on its flagship store in Palo Alto, California. Unlike other huge glass Apple flagship stores, this one is most known for overwhelming a nearby Microsoft store built just last year to out-do Apple.

Aside from the one-upsmanship between the two rivals, the 12,000-square feet store in the city’s Stanford shopping center expected to open in November may have been one of the last decisions made by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. According to a report Monday, Jobs approved the store’s design just six months before Tim Cook became CEO…

Microsoft woos iOS devs to write Windows apps

Android and iOS may have been all the rage in 2012 – and especially on Christmas Day when App Store downloads surged 87 percent versus the December 2012 average – but what about Microsoft?

While sales of Windows 8 tablets and Windows Phones have yet to reach a critical mass, the Redmond firm understands it needs more quality apps to lure users.

Quite an interesting get-together recently happened at Microsoft’s headquarters as the firm met with a cherry-picked group of iOS developers in an attempt to encourage them to produce versions of their apps for the Windows Phone platform. Is Microsoft throwing money at iOS devs’ feet? This reminds us of how the firm spent millions in the gaming space to steal PlayStation exclusives, much to its advantage…

Apple Stores outsold Microsoft Stores nearly 5 to 1 in Black Friday purchases

A quick side-by-side video MacWeekend.com shot early morning on Black Friday at Lone Tree’s Park Meadow Mall where both Apple and Microsoft have their respective retail stores shows one is packed and the other is not. Apple’s place is much smaller versus Microsoft’s so it feels busier, of course. And over at the Apple Store in the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster and his crew counted heads at both Apple’s store and the Microsoft Store directly across the hall.

Although non-scientific, their comparison survey tells us that shoppers picked up nearly five times as many items per hour at the Apple store. We already knew the iPad dominated mobile shopping on Black Friday. And if you ask kids, Apple’s tablet is the #1 item on their holiday wish list. Looks like Apple’s gonna own Christmas this year…