As part of its new $300 million marketing campaign and image makeover, Microsoft Corp. plans to deploy its own customer-service representatives at retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City to help citizens with their PC purchases.

The world’s largest software company plans to have 155 “Microsoft Gurus” in U.S. stores by the end of the year, and expand based on the project’s success, Microsoft’s general manager of corporate communications, Tom Pilla, said Friday.

These gurus will be answering questions

about PCs and Microsoft products, as well as giving demos of how the company’s products work together — help designed to get them thinking Microsoft.

“Think of that as borrowing a page from Nordstrom with that retail customer experience,” Pilla said, referring to the upscale branch store chain known for customer service.

The move is more likely to strike up comparisons with the rival that has portrayed Microsoft as unhip and out of […]

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