Microsoft has elected Sydney, Australia, as the location of its first ever store located outside of North America, where the company currently has 119 stores situated in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. The move promises not only to promote Microsoft’s products, but as the company explains, to become more involved with the local community via workshops, events, training, and offering educational support in science, mathematics, technology and engineering.

Why Australia you might ask, and not say London, U.K.? Microsoft gave a condensed explanation in an official blog stating that the development follows a string of recent investments Down Under. Pip Marlow, Managing Director, Microsoft Australia, wrote, “Last October we opened our Microsoft Australia Azure Geos and just a few weeks ago we bought Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online to our local data centres,” adding that Redmond also opened another Microsoft Innovation Centre in South Australia, while last year handing over A$50 million in software donations to Australia’s not-for-profit community.

While Microsoft already has 17 store-in-store locations in China and online stores in 189 countries, Australia is the lucky recipient of the first overseas flagship store. The location will be Westfield shopping centre in Pitt Street Mall. Microsoft says consumers can expect the whole gamut of Microsoft products, including PCs, tablets, Windows Phones, Xbox One and Office, as well as a help desk where customers can make use of experts for tech support on Microsoft products.

Microsoft likely realizes that online retail stores are not quite enough to get a foothold in the consumer ethos, and like Apple Inc., that already has 450 Apple Stores in total, 190 of which are not in North America, one would think the Sydney store might be the first of many more to come.

There has been no official opening date of the store but it’s thought that it will open sometime at the end of this year.

Photo credit: Microsoft Store, Atomic Taco via photopin cc