Microsoft Opening Store for Holidays at Columbia Mall

Microsoft announced Monday morning the spots of new holiday retail locations for its stores, one of which will be the .

A Microsoft spokesperson said the store will open this fall and close after the holidays, but did not provide exact dates.

Like the now ubiquitous (and insanely profitable) Apple stores, Microsoft is gearing up its retail operations to sell its popular software, such as Windows and Office, Xbox video game products and electronic devices.

A Microsoft spokesperson said the stores will provide a premium retail experience, "allowing customers to interact with Microsoft-enabled products that impact the way we live, work and play."

The store will be set up very similar to the way an Apple store is, with laptops, games and devices set up on long tables in the store with floating employees ready to help and engage with potential customers, based on pictures of the stores on Microsoftstore.com.

Slate technology writer Farhad Manjoo described a Microsoft store as an "unabashed" rip-off of an Apple store, but wrote the shops are fun.

"The [Xbox] consoles are always mobbed by kids, and because the Kinect is set up next to the front window, there's always a show for passers-by," wrote Manjoo. "It's an inviting spectacle—kids in odd poses having fun—and should be just as big a draw as cardboard cutouts of the new iPad."

A Microsoft critic on CNET wrote the new Microsoft Boston store impressed him. 

The Boston location, which opened in August, was the 23rd Microsoft store to open permanently. Thirty additional stores will open for the holidays, according to Microsoft. Besides Columbia, a store will also open for the holidays in Bethesda, which will be the only two in Maryland. A permanent location is already in place in Washington, D.C.

Will you check out the new Microsoft store? Tell us in comments.

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