There’s a lot of Apple in Microsoft and especially in Windows. However, when Apple started branching out into other fields, Redmond’s photocopier seemed to malfunction; while Apple blazed ahead with the iPod, Microsoft stalled with Zune.

Cult of Mac reports on Microsoft’s latest me-too blunder: opening retail stores across the way from Apple’s own stores.

John Brownlee:

The problem here is that Microsoft isn’t really a brand the same way Apple is: with the exception of the Xbox 360 and a few accessories, Microsoft sells software, not hardware, and so their stores aren’t showcases of their corporate inventiveness… they’re merely the same as any other big box electronics retailer.

Of course, he’s right. Microsoft is a big, successful company, and a hugely profitable one. Despite people saying Microsoft is ‘doomed’, it still has income and profits that are the envy of many in the industry. However, it’s not Apple. It doesn’t control hardware and software relating to its most important product (Windows), and it doesn’t have end-to-end product lines in the consumer electronics space, nor a strategy that’s nearly as coherent as Apple’s.

When you go to an Apple Store, you’re primarily looking at Apple products, augmented by third-party items that Apple doesn’t care to produce itself. When you go to a Microsoft Store, you’re instead largely looking at third-party products that Microsoft is somehow associated with. The Apple Store is unique. The Microsoft Store is a prettier version of Best Buy or Currys.