Microsoft announced Tuesday (March 6) the opening of its first Surface store in Singapore and its first in Southeast Asia.

The store is located in the Harvey Norman flagship superstore at Millennia Walk and will start its operations this Saturday, March 10.

Customers who own any Surface product can now get support for them, no matter where or when they bought it.

Managing Director of Harvey Norman Singapore and Malaysia, Kenneth Aruldoss, said they expect the Surface line-up and the store's concierge service "to be a draw" for customers.

The tech giant said that it will make its full range of Surface products available here. The Surface Studio and Surface Book 2 will be available for pre-order, and retail availability for both will be from 15 March 2018.

At the moment, only the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop are available in the Singapore market from the Microsoft Store online and authorised retailers.

One of its highly anticipated product, the Surface Studio, can also be purchased at the Surface store and is expected to cost S$6,488.

Microsoft is certainly late to the retail scene in Singapore but at least it is a positive step, and hopefully we'll be able to see quicker new releases in the future seeing that product launches usually come later than other larger markets like the USA.

This will likely put pressure on Windows OS partners such as Dell, HP, Lenovo and Asus, which will compete for shoppers' attention on the shop floor at Harvey Norman.

A previous report on the launch of the Surface Book 2 has stated that "Microsoft may soon give MacBook fans a run for their money".

The opening of Microsoft's Surface store in Singapore follows Apple's move last year, when it launched its Orchard Road outlet.

Looks like we can expect a stronger competition in the digital products arena.

This article was first published in Vulcan Post.