I'm intrigued by two recent announcements and whether it means anything.

Dell announced this week it's closing all those Dell Kiosks you see in places like shopping malls. Last week, Palm announced it's closing all of its retail outlets. (Caveat to that: There are only seven actual Palm-owned stores. The others are owned by another company that operates storefronts at airports. All this means is that the Palm signage is coming down and the airport stores will just expand their inventory to other wireless brands like Blackberries, etc.)

I think the technology industry, largely run by people who are more comfortable interacting with other people from a distance in the virtual world of cyberspace (i.e. email, IM, web conferences, etc.) than in person, have a bias towards selling from a distance anyway.

Hear me out, before you point out the obvious. Bricks and Mortar stores come with overhead. Why sell that way, when you can reach more customers online and not worry about commercial rents, shrinkage and all the other headaches that come with a traditional retail space?

But just a question; do we see Gateway stores, Dell Kiosks and the likes of Palm stores come and go because there really aren't customers out there who want to touch and test the goods before they buy?

I don't believe it.

Why did HP dethrone Dell in PC sales a year ago? I think it's a fair point that HP's offline sales were the tipping point. Dell must think so, too. It responded with its deal selling low-end PCs at Wal-Mart and guess what; it's helping to bring up that bottomline.

Everytime I buy a new computer, I swear I'm going to do it online this time. Ultimately, I go to a retail outlet to play around with various PCs and laptops, check out the latest Windows O/S, etc. with the intent of chalking it up as research and then going home to place my real order online. Every single time, I have ended up walking out of the store with the computer instead.

Color me old-fashioned, but I do like to touch and feel the wares before I lay my good money down. I like to buy my software out of a box with hard discs in hand as a backup and a nice slick instructional manual, rather than purchase it by download. I'm dating myself, but I miss those Egghead software stores in the malls from the early to mid-90's.

I can't be alone on this. Again, just a question.

Is there a market for selling off-the-shelf technology truly off the shelf or does the tech industry need to overcome their aversion to dealing with their customers face-to-face, instead of interface-to-interface?