BBC NEWS : Microsoft and Apple: Competing on the high street

"Seattle: I've just visited two shiny temples to technology, brightly lit places with keen, well-informed and helpful staff, and a welcome for anyone who wanted just to play on the laptops, mobile phones or tablet computers.
Yes, one was an Apple store, but the other, just a few doors along in a shopping mall in Bellevue near Seattle, was a Microsoft store. The software giant has now opened seven of these shops in the United States, an attempt perhaps to copy Apple's very successful experiment in selling its products direct to the public in an environment designed to reinforce the brand." ~Rory Cellan-Jones

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2011/02/microsoft_and_apple_competing.html
I think that this might help Microsoft, mainly in the display and testing of any new products they bring to t5he market. I don't see that it will help them in the sense that the Apple store does Apple. But I have been wrong in the past. I agree that this is a testing period to see if this has any possibility of working. I would like the chance to see one if they do indeed expand it.