Not sure what to make of the news that Microsoft will run a series of holiday-season-only shops to sell the Surface tablet this year. The stores will be located in Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Miami. The company is also advertising for seasonal help in the stores it now runs.

It’s a big bet on the Surface tablet, a product that won’t hit the market until October, and which we don’t know the price of just yet. But Surface will be up against the Kindle Fire from Amazon, which may have a few new versions by that point and will be priced super competitively since Amazon knows it can make up the cost with sales of e-books and other downloads. It’ll also probably be up against a new smaller iPad from Apple, which will be debuting. 

So, I don’t know, maybe Microsoft needs to stock up with people to manage the crowds of Surface-hungry consumers out there OR maybe Microsoft will just have a lot of employees standing around while the crowds flock to the Apple store or buy Kindle Fires online.