REDMOND -- Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, this morning downplayed the notion that Microsoft is following Apple's lead by opening its own retail stores.

Whereas Apple needed its stores to distribute Macs, Microsoft will be focused primarily on building its brands, connecting with consumers and better understanding the retail experience, Bach said. He made the comments while speaking with me and other reporters after addressing the annual Blacks at Microsoft Minority Student Day. Read on for the full text of his comments.

"You just have to think of it as a natural evolution of what's going on in the market, and it's a natural evolution of what's going on as we develop our brands. I saw some of the commentary that this was, you know, designed to be the same as Apple, or whatever. You should think about it, I think, quite differently. Apple's approach was about distribution. People forget that when they (opened) their stores, this was quite a while ago, and they didn't have distribution for Macintoshes, so they created their own distribution.

"We have plenty of distribution. These stores for us are about building our connection to customers, about building our brand presence, and about reaching out and understanding what works and what improves the selling experience. Apple, you would think of it as a volume distribution play. You should think of ours as much more of a brand and customer relationship investment, more than anything else."

Bach gave that answer in response to a question from Ben Romano of the Seattle Times. But even if Microsoft's reasons for getting into the business are different, Microsoft is clearly paying attention to what Apple is doing. As we noted last month, the company pokes fun at Apple in its prototype "Retail Experience Center" in Redmond. And Joe Tartakoff of the Seattle P-I reported last month that the company has also recreated a mini Apple store in the back room of that prototype facility.