I'm going to take a position completely opposite pscates and say this is a very good thing for Microsoft and for consumers in general. I'm going to lay out my theory, which proposes that it isn't at all just a shallow attempt to mimic Apple's retail success (though in reality, it probably is).
Basically, what is it that most Mac users complain about most with Windows? The inconsistencies. Well, there are a lot of things (of course), but Mac users really like the phrase "it just works," and the reason why Macs usually "just work" is because Apple maintains tight control over the hardware you have available to you. There are only so many hardware configurations a Mac user can have, so it's easy to support all of them.
This is different from Windows, where there are a virtually unlimited number of possible hardware configurations. That makes support really, really hard.
But think—what if Microsoft had a retail location where they could control exactly what hardware and software gets put on the shelves? Heh, see where I'm going with this now?
With Vista, MS has been going nuts with these "Certified for Windows Vista" labels for hardware and software alike. I think it's the best they can do to try to make things a little more consistent for people. Sort of like how, way back in the 80s and early 90s, Nintendo used the "Official Nintendo Seal of Quality" to indicate games and accessories that they had officially licensed. No seal, no guarantee of reliability. Of course, a lot of stuff is still going to get the seal (or in this case, the "Vista-ready" sticker) and still be crap, but that's unavoidable. I'm sure there's a lot of bad OS X software out there too that still bears the OS X logo (not sure what they use now, if it's still a blue X or if they've switched to something else).
MS has so much money they can kind of do whatever they want and see how it works. They might try to recreate the Genius Bar experience—though I'm not sure how they'd pull it off given the exponentially larger number of Windows users combined with the greater number of problems they tend to have—and I wouldn't blame them. Genius Bars, I think, have really helped Apple. Maybe MS will try to capture some of that. And if it ends up helping to educate people on how not to royally f*ck up their computers, that's a good thing.
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