Microsoft Coming To Tyson's Corner

Microsoft announced Thursday afternoon that it will open a new store in Tyson's Corner Center Mall, near the existing Apple store.

Microsoft made the announcement on its Facebook and Twitter pages with few details. The Washington Business Journal said this would be Microsoft's 14th store and its first store in the Greater Washington area.

The webpage for the new store says it's coming soon and will sell office products, Xbox, computers, software and phones. It did not offer an opening date.

Microsoft plans to open 75 new Microsoft stores in the next two to three years, a massive expansion of its retail outlets for a company that abandoned its earlier store strategy a decade ago, Cnet reported in July.

The software giant's chief operating officer, Kevin Turner, told the 15,000 attendees at Microsoft's 2011 Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles the stores have given the company tremendous insight into consumers, Cnet reported

"It's helping us transition from thinking about our customers to thinking like our customers," Turner said Thursday in a speech that was streamed online.

Apple opened one of its first two stores at Tysons Corner in 2001.