While in mid-May Apple submitted trademarks to uspto.gov with an official record number US Serial No: 85036990 for its distinctive store design, Bing parents was doing a visibilities research study and market analysis of finding a location for a new showroom at its hometown Seattle area. The first Microsoft showroom was opened in Mission Viejo, Orange County, one of the riches counties in California, and the second was opened in Scottsdale, Arizona. The first Microsoft store was opened in conjunction with the launch of Windows 7 late October last year. Later on, Bing’s parent company opened several stores or showrooms in few major cities to copycat Apple’s stores success. The retail store or showroom offers users to hand-on products before making decision to buy.
Using data from a city’s building permits, a local blogger has rumored about the new store since early last week. Later, another local tech blogger also wrote about the rumor that Microsoft will open a store at Bellevue Square mall. The store is slated to be open in time for this year’s holiday season.
As rivalry is heating up between Apple and Microsoft to be the number one most valuable technology company in the planet, Apple has opened its store in Microsoft hometown few years ago, it is right time now for Bing and family to open its own hometown store. While other large cities needed to be considered such as Santa Monica Promenade or Hollywood the Grove street mall.
Aside of being in the same mall as Apple Store, another piece of information may have triggered the decision to open a store at a local mall. Citing data published by Chitika one week ago, Chitika found that Bing decision engine was more receptive by hometown users. According to the data as we published on May 20, Bing is very popular in its hometown Redmond/Seattle area, where Bing controls about 16% of online users who conducted search.
(Apple Store sketch by Apple, as published via uspto.gov)