With one notable exception, vendor-specific computer stores have been an unmitigated disaster.

Raise your hand if you remember Gateway Country Stores. The cow-themed company had 188 physical outlets as of 2004, but terrible sales (despite boom times) forced the company to shutter them all, firing 2,500 workers.

Dell has also dabbled in physical stores, with equally dismal results. Its flagship outlet in Dallas' Northpark Center closed after just two years, shortly after it confessed it couldn't even support 140 or so tiny mall kiosks, handing them over to people hawking costume jewelry, cheap sunglasses, and Shrimp Chips.

So, really, why wouldn't Microsoft want to get in on the game and open its own Microsoft-branded stores?

Think what you want, but they're coming, according to a speech given yesterday by the company's Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner (pictured).

Microsoft hinted at brick and mortar stores earlier this year, but yesterday was its first big acknowledgment that the plan was shaping up.

The goal, of course, isn't to emulate Dell and Gateway, but rather to ride that shiny white elephant, Apple, which has turned the computer store from a depressing tomb filled with badly dressed nerds and moldy carpeting into a glossy mecca for the digerati and the tourist crowd alike.

There's a problem with that idea, of course, and that's that Microsoft hardly has the cachet of Apple, nor does it really have much the average Joe is going to make a special trip to the mall in order to buy. ("Hey Mom, let's go to the Microsoft Store and buy the new PowerPoint, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!!!!") Yes, it's got Xbox, but it sounds like that's not going to be a real focus.

No one really knows what to expect, however. All Microsoft is saying is that the stores will be more about spreading the Microsoft brand than trying to move product.

Alas, that may not work out so well. As Dell and Gateway can probably attest, physical stores are an awfully expensive way to try to get the word out about your product if you can't make money off of them. Physical traffic is always going to be limited, and stores have to be manned with personnel -- personnel who bathe and get to work on time, no less. Mall store space isn't exactly cheap, either. Nonetheless, Microsoft says it wants to get into Steve Jobs' face a little by opening its stores "in proximity to Apple."

The company says the stores are on track to open this fall, but has offered no other details on timing, locations, or the number of outlets.