Microsoft retail store coming to Denver: Get ready, nerds!

Everybody loves the Apple Store in the Cherry Creek Shopping Center. Even Westword. In 2006, we honored it with one of our annual Best Of awards: The Best Spot to Scope Smart Hotties. In 2009, we wrote about how the Apple Store is the modern-day mall arcade, teeming with "dozens...

By Melanie Asmar

April 2, 2010

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Everybody loves the Apple Store in the Cherry Creek Shopping Center. Even Westword. In 2006, we honored it with one of our annual Best Of awards: The Best Spot to Scope Smart Hotties. In 2009, we wrote about how the Apple Store is the modern-day mall arcade, teeming with "dozens of iKiddos diddling the sleek display items for hours while their parents power-shopped in peace."

But the futuristic store, which, at least at Christmas, had done away with clunky cash registers in favor of portable check-out scanners cleverly hidden under display tables and accessible by the iPeople-Who-Work-There, will soon get some competition from its biggest rival, Microsoft, which has announced plans to open a retail store here.

Westword first read about this news in Business Insider because, you know, we're smart and stuff and read publications with names like Business Insider and Inside Business. So we called Microsoft's public relations folks to see if they'd offer us any more details. They wouldn't. Instead, they offered to email us a statement:

"We can confirm that we plan to open Microsoft Stores in Denver, CO and San Diego, CA. We have nothing more to say at this time." - Microsoft Spokesperson

Thanks, Microsoft Spokesperson!

Microsoft already has two stores, in Mission Viejo, California and Scottsdale, Arizona. Read a cranky, Apple-loving blog about the opening of the Scottsdale store here. Read a nerdy Top 10 list that guesses how Microsoft stores will differ from Apple stores here. And read Microsoft's official press release about the opening of its first-ever store (the Scottsdale one) here. Ashley Tisdale made an appearance!

So while we have no idea when the Denver Microsoft store will open or where it will be located, we know it's coming. And we know that when it does, there will be dancing. You hear that Apple? There. Will. Be. Dancing.

I wonder if that wonderfully awkward video was captured using an iPhone...

Melanie Asmar is a staff writer for Westword. She joined the paper in 2009 and has won awards for her stories about education, immigration and epic legal battles. Got a tip? She'd love to hear it.

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