Microsoft Stores Live POC

I see my friend Bilal, of the Lotus Foundations team already posted on this, but let's see it in a different light.

As many know by now, Microsoft plans on having stores, a la Apple.

What they may be thinking is the new hardware they are coming out with will really impress everyone. We should only be so lucky to see those new Microsoft mouse and keyboard designs.(in spirit of truth in writing, I have a wireless Microsoft keyboard/mouse combo and they work fine).

What do they think they can accomplish? Better yet, who will be working there? I would bet not the best and brightest of Redmond. Thus easy pickings for anyone that wants to go convert a bunch of customers to Lotus or any other product.

Just imagine going in there and asking why Exchange or Sharepoint for that matter can't send a 100MB attachment or store it without causing issue. I know someone will say they do it, but I bet the store limits attachments to 10MB or something small.
So go test and have fun.

While you are at it, ask them to show you in a graphical representation the network architecture in the store which will enable them to use Sharepoint with Exchange. Raise your hand if you think it's only 2 servers. Sorry you must be a CIO in Microsoft's pocket if you still think that! Go read my other posts start here and get your head around how much it will cost and how many cals, licenses, servers you will need.
Lotus has you on this one Redmond.

What I think you may see from the stores, potentially, is a POC location. Every store, quite easily, could be rolled out with ALL the products running and in synch and easily shown or detailed live so customers can see it does all work together so well. But remember to count the # of servers, it will be staggering. Even if they use a central one, which we know they can't because Exchange and Sharepoint do not play well across a WAN, it will still be interesting to see.

Also will they ban people like me from their stores fort harassing the "tech" staff?