Move over Apple and make room for Samsung.

In what could be a win-win-lose situation for Samsung, Best Buy, and Apple, the Korean electronics maker announced today that it will open up Samsung Experience Shops in 1,400 Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile specialty stores across the U.S. These shops within a shop will allow customers to explore, purchase, activate, and receive service on a wide range of Samsung mobile products and accessories.

As you navigate big box retailers like Best Buy this holiday shopping season, you're going to notice a uniform marketing drive when it comes to pushing Windows 8 PCs to the masses. In the U.S., you'll find Windows 8 systems configured to show emails, photos, and personal contacts from Allison Brown, a fictional character Microsoft created as part of an effort to humanize Windows 8 and to put the "personal" back into personal computers. In essence, Microsoft is flipping the script and telling retailers how to run their operations.

Best Buy this week announced that its Board of Directors appointed Hubert Joly, former head of a global hospitality and travel company, as the chain's President and Chief Executive Officer. In addition to inheriting the burdens of a struggling electronics chain, Joly will receive what some consider to be a king's ransom worth up to tens of millions of dollars over the next few years.