Microsoft has announced its plans to open another 75 retail stores across North America. The announcement came at the Worldwide Partner conference on Wednesday and marks a significant step to challenge Apple at the bricks and mortar retail store game.

Since Microsoft started opening retail stores in 2009, there has been little said about the stores. They offer an environment like the Apple retail stores where customers can browse a number of computers, try out Windows, investigate peripherals such as printers, scanners etc and allow customers to pick up software.