This is something I think is pretty exciting – especially if you’re looking to score some Microsoft product. We are announcing the Microsoft Store – the first online store where you can purchase Microsoft products straight from the source!
We’re selling all of our products at a one-stop-shop: www.MicrosoftStore.com.
The Microsoft Store offers the largest selection of Microsoft software, devices and hardware in one place. You will find many reasons to visit the store:
We’re not just launching the Microsoft Store for US customers. In addition to the US Microsoft Store, there are also online stores for customers in the UK, Germany and Korea. Japan, France, Spain and the Netherlands are coming soon. More countries will be coming onboard throughout the year.
I’ll be picking myself up one of the new Microsoft LifeCam Show webcams from the Microsoft Store as I had been looking to pick one up for a while now.
Cool!
Not to put down, but this is again (currently) only for US :(
Any time frame when it would be International?
Ah..my mistake! The post does say this:
"We’re not just launching the Microsoft Store for US customers. In addition to the US Microsoft Store, there are also online stores for customers in the UK, Germany and Korea. Japan, France, Spain and the Netherlands are coming soon. More countries will be coming onboard throughout the year."
Great! Looking forward here in NZ ;)
As mentioned above in the blog post - the Microsoft Store is also available to folks in the UK, Germany, and Korea. So it's already going International. We also mentioned stores for Japan, France, Spain and the Netherlands should be coming online soon and more in the future.
Stay tuned.
Canada, how could you forget about your neighbour to the north, we buy Microsoft products to. :-) Great to see this though, and please hurry up with Canada.
Pls in Italy!!!!!!
I think this was an idea which was long overdue. Will be great when it goes international and is available everywhere. Allowing purchases in local curriencies will really be of convinience to customers.
Including it some way in Micrososft Affiliate Program, which right now anyway, just offers the Live toolbar & OneCare would be a great idea, if possible.
Any BlackFriday / CyberMonday Deals comming up!
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Does through the year mean "by end of 2008" or "sooner or later"?
How many essentially identical English language stores are you going to provide, or will the effort trickle out after a couple of countries just like every other MS store attempt?
It sounds much more difficult than going to Amazon where I can buy from ANYWHERE in the world - in fact much more like Apple's iTunes store where Apple sends out press releases and forgets that it hasn't made product X available in your country.
Forgot to ask. What if I'm travelling overseas (which is pretty common) and I want to purchase/upgrade? Is there going to be a hamfisted attempt to match up my ISP du jour's IP address (which may not match the actual country you're in when in Europe or some parts of Asia) with my bank address?
Once again Australian's miss out on another great place from Microsoft *sigh*.
(P.S. The design of the site is GREAT!)
I mean no offense, but The Microsoft Store is not ""the first online store where you can purchase Microsoft products straight from the source." That would be Windows Marketplace, which has been available for several years. In fact, Windows Marketplace offers several niceties not found on the Microsoft Store, not the least of which is the availability of third-party software. So maybe the Microsoft is really ""the first online store where you can purchase *only* Microsoft products straight from the source." :)
HI everyone, I'm the Lead Program Manager on Microsoft Store. Thanks for all the great comments so far.
Just wanted to chime in on two questions that were asked. First, the roll-out to more international countries is something you'll see us progressively do over the course of the year, which includes some in 2008.
Second, the Microsoft Store US does not do restrictions based on IP for your purchases, but do require a US billing and shipping addresses. So if you are traveling overseas and are craving to buy something from Microsoft Store, you can indeed do that.
@ Trevin
could be interesting,at least for the products making DOWNLOAD able to purchase international
Like Windows or Gaming PC
How does this bode for Windows Marketplace?
I really like the Microsoft Store btw. It may not be a retail store (which I've always wanted to see at a local mall!), but it's better than typical MS sites. However:
1. I feel there needs to be more info. - In the effort to keep the site as simple and clean as possible, I think the site makers were a bit too spare on the information side. I'd like more screenshots, maybe a video overview, tips & tricks section, and guides. Heck, why not just integrate all the product sites together?
2. Cheaper prices - Considering there's no shipping or physical media and packaging to do, shouldn't the prices be cheaper? I'd think the prices online would be cheaper and convenient that a brick store.
3. Missing items - I didn't spot Encarta. I would also like older versions of products too.
4. No stock images please! - I think generic stock images are pretty tacky, and at least I only spotted one this time, on the Windows section. Please, if you want a nice clean sleek site, generic stock photos need to be avoided.
Keep up the good work guys!
@TREVIN: only permitting a domestic shipping address when you're travelling overseas on business kind of misses the point doesn't it?
On the occasion that I have to rebuild or expand my laptop while travelling (which is not uncommon), the take away from this is that the Microsoft Store is useless.
I'm also curious to know if you will be able to buy foreign-language SKUs from stores. Since Microsoft has made this extremely difficult (even for Microsoft employees via the MS employee store), it ignores the fact that MILLIONS of people around the world who live and work in countries that do not use their first language. Result? Piracy and purchasing unsupported gray-market editions of non-domestic SKUs.
All in all, it makes me wonder what customer need this store solves. Given that the margins are already being reported to be higher than external vendors, and that the delivery options are less, who are you actually targetting?
@Hitmouse:
If you are traveling, you always have the option to buy ESD products, then there is no shipping involved. We didn't target the US store to ship internationally since we do have international stores for other markets. Addtionally, If you look at other retailers, this is not an uncommon practice.
Additionally, if you do buy ESD, you can always re-download it wherever you are in the world. In your example where your laptop fails and needs to be re-installed, you would want to use a previously purchased license instead of buying a new one.
At this time, the SKUs for sale on each Microsoft Store are only ones that are available for that market. So you wouldn't find a SKU that is meant for sale in the EU being sold on the US Microsoft Store (or vice versa).
@Trevin:
I assume though that wherever I travel, I can only buy from the store if I have a credit card address corresponding to a particular store. Does the issueing bank also have to correspond to the store's country? I've been burned by this before (in fact as a past employee of MS, not being able to use a credit card with a billing address in a country different to that of the issuing bank) - which is a restriction of the vendor, not the credit cardcompanies.
"We didn't target the US store to ship internationally since we do have international stores for other markets. Addtionally, If you look at other retailers, this is not an uncommon practice."
One might wonder if Microsoft is going to aim for best practice rather than worst.
So a Korean student in the US wouldn't be able to buy a Korean version of Windows or Office unless there was a Korean store and he had a credit card billing address in Korea.
Any indication on when Australian or NZ stores will be available?
We currently only allow customers with a billing address in the market served. So in your example of a Korean student living in the US with only a Korean billing address, they would not be able to buy from the US Microsoft Store.
However, this situation would likely not occur, since a student living in the US would likely have some type of bank account unless they live their life entirely in cash and store it under their mattress :)
But in all seriousness, we do have the limitation you describe. The upside is that the vast majority of customers don't have the particular situation you've identified. For the small percentage of customers that do need this capability, it's something we could look at enabling in the future.
As for our international roll-out schedule, we don't have definitive plans to share yet for Australia or New Zealand.
@Trevin: I was asking about a Korean student buying Korean language products. I presume that he would NOT be able to purchase these from the US store, and would thus be restricted to buying from the Korean store under the conditions described.
These is a common scenario, well known from MS' own research into multi-lingual product use - and not catered for. In Europe, the language/border permutations are even more obvious due to work and study migrations.
@HitMouse:
Apologies, I misunderstood a portion of your question (but hopefully did address the others).
We aren't doing any special restrictions on Microsoft Store for the of products sold as long as they are SKUs meant for that market. In your example of the Korean student wanting a Korean version of Microsoft Office, we do sell the Office 2007 multi-language pack which does include Korean language support (in addition to 30+ other languages).
The pure native Korean SKU of Microsoft Office is not for sale like it is in Korea, but this isn't something particular about Microsoft Store -- that SKU isn't available in the US market.
You mentioned that the problem is more common in the EU, so you'll be then pleasantly surprised to find out that for those customers, any EU customer can buy from any of our EU stores and have products delivered to any EU address.
I hope this answers your questions.
So, any plans for Ireland then? And what about allowing Laser cards to be used? Pretty much everyone who has a bank account here in Ireland has a laser card, so it would make a lot of sense to allow the use of them in an Irish Microsoft online shop.
I hear that you realising the windows vista sp2.my queries are
1.vista sp2 should be run in 512mb Ram.This one is very important.
2.Improve the speed and faster perfomance.
3.want userfriendly like windows xp.
4.Improve the application running speed.
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