First Photo Of Microsoft Retail Store SurfacesFirst Photo Of Microsoft Retail Store Surfaces

Here's the first image of one of Microsoft's planned retail stores, as tweeted by the corporate communications team at Redmond. Actually, it's a shot of the drywall in front of the store, which is presumably still under construction.Although we don't know what the story is going to look like inside, one thing we can say is it's clearly going to be biiiiiiiig. We also don't know which of the first two Microsoft storefronts is being shown. There will be a location in Scottsdale, Arizona, and also one in Mission Viejo, Calif. (That's in Orange County, in SoCal.)

Speculation on the look and feel of the actual retail experience came recently via Gizmodo, which posted a leaked Powerpoint showing purported mock-ups of the stores' innards.

Clearly, a retail store from Microsoft, no matter how they lay it out, is not going to be as "cool" as its Apple competition. That's not a criticism, just a perceptual fact. As in, coolness is in the eye of the beholder, and if Apple can be analogized to Angelina Jolie, then Microsoft is Meryl Streep. Nothing wrong with Streep -- I wouldn't entertain the thought of going to see Julie & Julia if she wasn't in it, and if Ms. Jolie was starring, I wouldn't even bother. Anyway, I think you get what I'm trying to say her, tortured though my explication might be.

The point is, Microsoft's retail stores can look like Best Buys, for all I care. The question is, how well do they serve customers. Are their geniuses really going to be helpful geniuses, with genuine enthusiasm to connect with their clients? (You know, they way Starbucks employees used to be in the old days.)

Another key determinant of Microsoft's success will be execution. One thing you have to give to Apple, for all their supposed hipness, their stores run as if they were organized by a quartermaster who could've won World War II singlehandedly. I went into Apple's Roosevelt Field, Long Island store last weekend. It was so packed you couldn't move, yet I was in and out in five minutes with an iPod Touch, case, and iTunes gift certificate.

OK, so here's that picture. I call it the "Great Wall of Microsoft Store."

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Alex Wolfe is editor-in-chief of information.com.