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Microsoft will deploy "Gurus" to stores to help customers interested in purchasing a new PC or learn more about Windows products

Microsoft's recent $300 million marketing push includes Bill Gates working alongside comedian Jerry Seinfeld in a series of commercials. Microsoft reinvigorated marketing efforts also include customer-service representatives who will be sent to Best Buy, Circuit City and other brick and mortar retail stores.  

The Redmond, Washington-based company plans to have 155 "Microsoft Gurus" deployed to retailers across the country throughout 2008 and will expand the program depending on its success at the end of the year.  According to Microsoft general manager of corporate communications, Tom Pilla, the customer reps would be responsible for helping answer questions regarding Microsoft and PCs offered in the stores.

Rather than pay each guru on commission, they'll be graded according to the customer experience by customers, who will chat with the gurus and learn more about Microsoft products and the PC industry.

Since October 2007, Microsoft has had a similar program with 25 service employees in several stores in the United States and in Europe.  The company did not say how successful its small pilot program has been among shoppers.

Apple has a similar service, dubbed the "Genius Bar," located in many Apple retail stores, with Apple employees available to help customers with their Macs or iPods.  Each Apple Genius Bar also helps offer on-site technical support for customers who purchased something and are having problems with it.

Microsoft has been desperate to get consumers interested in Windows Vista, which users have not been eager to adopt.  The Microsoft Gurus and its $10 million for Seinfeld's services are the latest tactics as Microsoft tries to stop losing ground to the OS X and Linux operating systems.

The first Microsoft commercial, which aired last Thursday during the opening game of the NFL season, was met with confusion and disappointment among those in the computer industry.

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why?
By omnicronx on 9/8/2008 3:41:18 PM , Rating: 2
I already have my BestBuy geeksquad.. whats more qualified than that?




RE: why?
By KillerInTheRye on 9/8/2008 3:46:59 PM , Rating: 5
A toiletbrush.


RE: why?
By Nik00117 on 9/8/2008 3:57:23 PM , Rating: 2
Don't give them too much credit.


RE: why?
By Aquila76 on 9/8/2008 8:54:28 PM , Rating: 2
A toilet brush used to unclog a 'green monster' in Fenway? Nah, Geek Squad would still be more full of $h1t.


RE: why?
By Mitch101 on 9/8/2008 4:34:40 PM , Rating: 3
HEY HEY HEY. Geeksquad is a Brilliant idea. I wish I could be cruel enough to Charge people $400.00 just to tell them their hard drive is dead then offer to charge them 30% more than newegg and another $400.00 to reload their OS and maybe sell them some useless AV software as well or a $90.00 monster power surge protector. Heck I would need only one sucker I mean customer a month.


RE: why?
By lagomorpha on 9/10/2008 4:16:34 AM , Rating: 2
"30% more than newegg"

Come now this is best buy we're talking about. Try 100%-150% more than newegg. 1500% more for cables


RE: why?
By joeld on 9/9/2008 9:07:55 AM , Rating: 2
The Nerd Herd


RE: why?
By Locutus465 on 9/9/2008 10:15:39 AM , Rating: 2
lol.... this post is the laugh of the day!


RE: why?
By Fracture on 9/9/2008 3:13:15 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
I already have my BestBuy geeksquad.. whats more qualified than that?


Many, many people missed your sarcasm.

And this makes me sad.

I worked for Best Buy for 2 years on the computer sales floor and sadistically got my satisfaction giving free help rather than subject people to a $100 diagnostic.

That'll teach 'em to underpay me =)


I wouldnt compare it to the genius bar...
By Doormat on 9/8/2008 2:17:54 AM , Rating: 2
The Genius bar is mostly for tech support. I dont think thats what these folks will be doing. Its comparable to Apple store staff in general - providing solutions and answering general questions.




RE: I wouldnt compare it to the genius bar...
By Mitch101 on 9/8/2008 10:25:20 AM , Rating: 3
Whether or not Genius is Guru is a apple to oranges comparison with the scope of their job description Microsoft needs to do something about the FUD Apple continues to spread. They should have let the bashing go long ago but now it simply not justified. Before SP1 I would agree that Vista had problems however since then I have all but one issue with Vista everything else has been improved in Vista over XP or is equal or on par with XP. Apple still hasn't shown at all what makes Leopard better. They just say it is with no proof. Does the Apple guy wear the same outfit in every commercial? Ewww. He looks like the creepy 27-33 year old that hangs out with teen skate boarders and lives in his parents basement. How can he afford a mac on a Pizza delivery persons salary? Maybe he looks broke because he spent all his money to buy a Mac? Either way I haven't seen any proof only a homeless person trying to sell me a MAC in the apple commercials. I'm not saying Microsoft commercials are better. The Apple guy is close to a homeless person why is a homeless person trying to sell me on MAC?

Finally the one issue I have with Vista is I have numerous video capture cards both USB and PCI and only my ATI HDTV wonder works with Vista using the XP driver. The number of default drivers in Vista for legacy hardware even not full featured should have had base support for legacy generation chips. But I will blame hardware companies for not supporting previous generations of their hardware with Vista especially since their newer hardware contains the same encoding chips and they want to force me to buy a new video capture card instead. So instead of supporting the Hardware companies again with another video capture card I simply bought a DVD recorder to archive my legacy VHS tapes. I can just put the DVD into the PC drive and edit just as good as any video capture card.


RE: I wouldnt compare it to the genius bar...
By Doormat on 9/8/2008 1:55:51 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
WAAA!!!! I DON'T LIKE THE APPLE ADS SO I'LL ENGAGE IN AD HOMIMIMS AGAINST THE MAC PERSONA


I agree that Vista is better with SP1, and a lot of the problems are drivers that MS isn't directly responsible for. But railing on the ads is going to get MS nowhere. Actions speak louder than words. Putting people in the stores are good, but they're still glorified salesmen, not tech specialists who fix stuff.


RE: I wouldnt compare it to the genius bar...
By Mitch101 on 9/8/2008 4:26:42 PM , Rating: 5
I work in IT and most of the time I would say the product isn't broken they just don't know how its works or how to work it. In some cases an add in has been tuned off and you just need to know where to flip the switch. Granted a lot of switches aren't always clearly visible or labeled. I have played with Apple and Linux and the same applies to them because I don't know where the switch is or in Linux case how to flip it sometimes doesn't make me want to bash the OS or claim its broken. There is too much of a idea when something doesnt work the way they expect it to well it must be broken.

PEBCAK - Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard.


By whiskerwill on 9/9/2008 10:05:24 PM , Rating: 2
Didn't Intel do an ad on the very same topic?


developers developers developers
By gbed on 9/8/2008 12:33:10 PM , Rating: 5
In my Microsoft New Hire orientation, the question was asked, why doesn't MS just hire all the devs it needs to fix everything perfectly?

Quite simply. There's not enough quality devs out there. We all ask those questions, why doesn't my nvidia or ATI drive do x function? Why doesn't software do xy function?

So, Microsoft is currently hiring developers, if you have the talent, feel free to apply and help. If you know friends, have them apply.

Before I started working for Microsoft. I upgraded my mom's old shuttle to Vista. It's running a single core AMD athlon 2000 with 1gb of ram (2x512) and my old ATI 8500 AGP card.

Runs Aero no problem and cruises the internet fine.

So, Vista can run on old boxes, just have reasonable expecations, load up on cheap memory and try to avoid on board video when possible.

I doubt the new MS commercials are targeted towards the very knowledgeable computer crowd. Much as the Apple ads are not targeted towards a tech savy market.

Happily,

I'm a pc :)




RE: developers developers developers
By Bremen7000 on 9/9/2008 3:40:18 PM , Rating: 2
If you think hiring more people is the way to fix all software problems, you've got some reading to do..


By lagomorpha on 9/10/2008 4:21:39 AM , Rating: 2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks'_law

What he's referring to is Brooks' law: "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later"


hmm
By DanDaManJC on 9/8/2008 1:57:57 AM , Rating: 3
it's nice to see the gurus/salesmen won't be paid on commission, but rather how honest they are. fancy that huh?




RE: hmm
By Snowy on 9/8/2008 8:29:57 AM , Rating: 2
It's a win-win situation for both the customers and the gurus. I wish more companies would do this, rather than having its employees sell the customer a piece of crap, just to get paid.


Reach out to the buyer & users
By crystal clear on 9/8/2008 11:06:39 AM , Rating: 1
Its good that M.S. finally started to take matters in their own hands,rather than depend on retailers to promote Vista.

They have realized press releases & statements promoting Vista dont really get the job done.

They have realized retailers are incapable of promoting Vista & neither do they make a serious effort to do so.

This should have been done when Vista was launched, but its not too late either.

After the release of Vista SP1 they are in a better position to promote Vista successfully.

M.S. should take away customer support services regarding Vista from the OEMs/retailers & set up a customer support service (exclusively for Vista) accessble to anybody without any charge .

OEMs/retailers have a sloppy customer support services that customers find it very disgusting.

M.S. should set up call centres or after sales services centres in the USA for USA & not depend on call centres in India for this.

The message is crystal clear-

Go to the buyers if you want them to buy VISTA & make yourself easily accessable to users & buyers .

Give them quality support services & you will see VISTA sales shoot upwards.

Dont call them GURUS give it a more user friendly name.

If M.S. can bring out a SP2 for VISTA by Jan 09 it will even better for VISTA.

M.S. should announce price cuts immidiately to push this campaign even harder




RE: Reach out to the buyer & users
By Parhel on 9/8/2008 2:55:54 PM , Rating: 3
Either Hell would have to freeze over or the US economy would have to collapse before MS ever offers free technical support based out of the US.

It is good to see them actually promoting Vista, rather than just take it for granted that everyone will have to buy it anyways when they buy a new PC.

If they could pull it off, a price drop and another service pack would really help in getting everyone else on board. Now, why can't they promote the Zune?


There seems to be 3 groups...
By steven975 on 9/8/2008 12:37:25 PM , Rating: 3
1. Vista users. They, like me, by and large seem to like it. I use the 64bit edition with 6GB of RAM (that costs, what $100 now?), and it flies. It also never crashes. I still dual-boot XP for older games, though. I used to bash Vista, but I took a chance because the 2GB memory limit (well, 3GB, but with my video cards it's 2.5GB) is a big handicap with XP, and XP-64 isn't realistic. I'm glad I took the chance.
2. XP users who seem to bash Vista daily. Most of them have probably never used it, though. Vista isn't for 4 year old PCs. It's for new ones, and works very well for them.
3. Mac users who think their insecure OS is godly. Nothing I want to do can be done on a Mac. Play most games. Record and stream my HDTV. Use MS Office for work with VBA support. Do they even play Blu-Ray?