The concept of designing a “new normal” as a result of COVID-19 is one Microsoft knows well- the company announced on Friday that it had taken a decision to abandon the concept of physical retail, permanently closing all of its stores. 

The company will continue to support customers online, with retail team members working remotely and at Microsoft corporate locations.

“Our sales have grown online as our product portfolio has evolved to largely digital offerings, and our talented team has proven success serving customers beyond any physical location,” said Microsoft Corporate Vice President David Porter.

Since the Microsoft Store locations closed in late March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the retail  team has helped small businesses and education customers digitally transform; virtually trained hundreds of thousands of enterprise and education customers on remote work and learning software; and helped customers with support calls. The team supported communities by hosting more than 14,000 online workshops and summer camps and more than 3,000 virtual graduations.

The move will result in a pretax charge of about $450 million, or 5 cents a share, in the current quarter.