• Wall Street Journal, Friday, February 13, 2009 10:45 AM

Microsoft has hired David Porter, most recently the head of worldwide product distribution at DreamWorks Animation and a 25-year veteran of Wal-Mart, to lead an effort to create "a small number" of retail stores.

"The purpose of opening these stores is to create deeper engagement with consumers and continue to learn firsthand about what they want and how they buy," the company says in a statement.

The move is a sign of the deeper role consumer-technology companies are playing in the retail business. Apple's stores -- with their eye-catching architecture, highly-trained sales staff and "genius bars" for technical support -- have given it a way to showcase its products away from competitors. Sony and Bose also operate their own stores.

Gateway shuttered nearly 200 retail stores in 2004 after weak sales, however. And it remains to be seen whether the effort will add some pizzazz to Microsoft's unfashionable image, writes Nick Wingfield, which Apple has done its best to reinforce with an ongoing campaign that mocks a personification of the Windows marketer as nerdy, wonky and wanna-be.

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