Microsoft is getting into the retail store business, and has hired a Wal-Mart exec to lead the effort; the move is heralded as “taking a page out of Apple’s playbook,” and that’s almost certainly what they think they’re doing — after all, Apple has had a great deal of success with its stylish brand-enhancing shops.

This is baffling on a number of levels (timing for one), but the biggest head-scratcher is why they think anyone would go to a Redmond-owned store to buy any MS product. Apple stores work because Apple kit is perceived as stylish, hip, interesting, and desirable on levels unconnected with mundane IT concerns. There are plenty of legitimate technical reasons to prefer the Mac platform, both in terms of hardware and software, but those are secondary, I think, to the appeal of the stores.

Apple also offers a unity of design and function as well as a delightful marriage of hardware and software that Microsoft simply can’t match (this “we make both” angle is a nontrivial aspect to Mac reliability). Microsoft, on the other hand, has a broad and confusing suite of products, but doesn’t sell any computers at all unless you count the XBox.

Further, Apple enjoys tremendous channel control; it’s next to impossible to buy a new Mac for much less than retail, so a buyer doesn’t hurt themselves financially by doing their deal at an Apple store vs. ordering online. Microsoft’s gear and software, on the other hand, is traditionally deeply discounted by resellers, and MS won’t be able to compete with or undercut those prices without poisoning their own channel. End result: High prices at MS retail, lower prices at Amazon, and no crowds at the shops.

Sony, Dell, and Gateway all tried to do the retail thing, and unless I’m wholly incorrect none of them managed (or have managed) to make the shops interesting from a financial perspective. Nobody ever stood in line for anything these guys made, and the same is true for Microsoft. IT managers herald the next rev of Exchange Server, sure, and those stung by Vista await Windows 7 with cautious optimism, but none of those guys are going to stand in line for their upgrades.

Look for the Microsoft stores to be awkward, weird, and without obvious charm — which is more or less what happens every time MS apes something someone else did without understanding why the other party was successful.