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Microsoft May Acquire Nook Tablet Business From Barnes and Noble
whoever57 writes "According to a report in Techcrunch, Microsoft is considering buying out the remaining shares in Nook Media. Microsoft already owns 17% of Nook Media. Documents reveal that Nook Media plans to discontinue selling tablets and transition to a model under which media is distributed through partners."
(Also at SlashCloud.)
So, the Nook is history, and we will see a crippled Sidewalk or Ceiling Tile or Man Hole or whatever that Microsoft thing is? Oh yes... The Surface.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
If you can't grow a market, just buy one.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Aren't they the (pretty much only) Android vendor to refuse to pay up to Microsoft's patent racket? And it says Microsoft owns 17% of them - is that right?
If they buy it, i'm dumping my simple touch ( which i do love ). Screw them, and the horse they rode in on. It does explain why B&N passed up on the batch of 6.8" e-ink screens that just became available.. They are done with the business.
Well, it's an improvement. They stopped innovating and went to almost 10 years of mee-too-itis, not learning from IBM and OS 2, and it caught up to them. So buy an innovation that isn't mee too.
Buying other peoples' successful stuff has its own issues.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
That the Nook had a market to burn. The hardware-for-price was a winner for the form factor but ultimately B&Ns walled garden app store proved once again that what people really want is selection.
I own 3 nooks, but they're all running CM 10.1. Stock ROM is very limited.
If "what people really want is selection", then why do people buy video game consoles instead of PCs? PCs have a far larger selection of video games and other applications than consoles due to the far lower overhead and the far less strict developer qualifications. Why would people want selection on a tablet but not on a TV?
With no Nook, how will Barnes and Noble survive? They're the last major US bookstore chain, and they've already closed many of their stores.
I don't understand.. if Google farts a particular corporation rains down hard and wants investigations... but IMO Microsoft could probably buy US States right now without so much as a blink from the DOJ, FTC, or others.
IMO Gates[1] seems to be positioning himself for a power play in the US Government, recently speaking with the blue dress, I mean Clinton.
[1] Yes, I know, he's not directly working at/for MS this particular point wasn't about MS. But if you must look in that direction, doesn't he still hold some title @ MS?
IMO, I see Gates as the person, if not eventually at the top of US and/or US/UN, as someone to bring in the Mark of The Beast technology. I've read article after article with people saying, "Oh he's so nice, totally changes the anti-christ view some crazy religious people have been referring to" - and yet the anti-christ will not appear malicious at first! I know you non believers love to brow beat believers with so much scripture you have under your belt! IMO I'm not saying HE or any other individual is or will be the anti-christ but remember there are anti-christ(S).
Idiocracy and media like it will make it so much smoother than butter to bring in the chip. And after your Google Glass and much more advanced technology, it will appear strange if you're not using it (peer pressure!), but will you be like Wesley Crusher who cries out against it (ST:TNG - Episode "The Game") and tries to bring humanity back to reality?
First Microsoft sued Barnes and Noble, and B&N went to court to fight. Then they reached a settlement in which Microsoft agreed to make a large investment in their digital media business. Now Microsoft seems to be about to buy Nook. Next, Windows 8 Mini-tablets? Even with patents, purchasing, and the long march towrds their OS on all tablets, will this work? How many billions will this cost?
It says they will discontinue selling tablets, so what does MS get from the deal ? The Nook brand name with no products ? Does not seem buying it to run a marketplace for a dead end tablet would make sense either.
Lesser sites might offer conjectures about why MS might be interested in Nook - or, might not be. Perhaps the up and down sides of such a strategy. That would be interesting to read.
But ragging on typo's is much more /.. Woot!
Yeah, I know the Nook was ok... Maybe the time has come for B&N to create an actualy good e-reader, like nothing already in the market.
Or maybe they could stop locking themselves behind plataforms, and create something for all tablet-like devices out there. With unobstrusive or no DRM.
Rethinking email
Is this so they screw up another tablet?
After destroying the rotten mall bookstores that came before it (waldenbooks, I'm talking about you), B&N is now facing an internal collapse. This kinda sucks, because I look wandering through shelves, discovering books. With the GOP destroying our government (and publicly-funded libraries), human knowledge is faced with the potential of diminishing. This sucks.
Fr3eBSfD's
I like my Nook. I only use it for reading so it's limitations compared to a tablet never bothered me. Microsoft will likely rip out its basic Android underpinnings and replace them with Windows. The result will be a seemingly underpowered "general purpose" device that tries to do everything (but often not well). More importantly, the battery life will be cut substantially due to Windows lower efficiency. They'll effectively ruin the Nook as an e-reader.
Personally, I buy video game consoles because the games I want to play are released only for consoles.
No matter what console you buy, you can't play both Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Halo 3 because not only are these exclusive to consoles, but they're also exclusive to different consoles. Do people actually buy and carry an iPad for iOS-only applications, a Nexus tablet for Google Play-only applications, a Kindle Fire for Kindle-only streaming videos, and a Nook for Nook-only whatever?
For another, why are third- party games "released only for consoles" in the first place? I imagine that it'd be easier to port an Xbox 360 game to Windows than to port it to PlayStation 3 because DirectX for Windows is far more similar to DirectX for Xbox 360 than either is to libgcm for PlayStation 3. Yet Mortal Kombat (2011) is available on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 but not PC. To continue the analogy, is there some sort of incentive for publishers to make their works available on Nook but not the iBookstore or Google Play Books?
to plow under with their idiotic designs and closed-source business model.
I never liked the Nook much anyway. If Microsoft gives Nook the kiss of death we might gain a little clarity in the book reader marketplace.
Like the inimitable Groucho Marx, I would never join a club that would have me as a member.
HA HA!
It's like... when you have a good idea and it's snatched out of the air by Microsoft Alien Crafts hovering above monitoring every citizen's EEGs and buying their way through the hedge maze.
"Documents reveal that Nook Media plans to discontinue selling tablets and transition to a model under which media is distributed through partners"
According to the Techcrunch report, Nook Media plans to discontinue its Android-based tablet business. Are these two events related?
AccountKiller
I think that this makes sense, at least from BN's standpoint. They keep having to drop the cost of the nook to compete, and it turns out they really don't make any money on the device anyway. The whole point of it is so they can sell their books. That's where they make money. Since you can download the nook software on just about any device, why actually have one? As for Msft buying them out. That's a win for BN, and a loss for Msft. Other than the name, I don't see any real reason my Msft would want to purchase it.
. . . grabbing at anything to stay afloat.
If you go to the Bellevue MS office and take the elevator to the reception floor to "check in" on the wall of the elevator is a sign offering a nook as a prize for a contest thing. I saw it earlier this week while visiting a friend who works there for lunch, before we got our vistors badges.
Its publicly posted, in plain view of the public, for anybody who is part of the media or has not signed a NDA to see as they go visit the reception desk to "check in" or visit microsoft. Everybody can see it (until its taken down tomorrow after ms shrills read this post) so its considered a public disclosure.
Given that internal MS culture would never allow this use of a competeting product otherwise, in my personal opinion it pretty much confirms that its already a done deal.
That is however only my personal opinion, I do not represent msft, using multiple tor nodes and saying this all so I cant be sued, etc.
... They have squandered so much potential and they seem to determined to squander their vast fortune buying out one failed project after another and running it thoroughly into the ground.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
That could have actually worked.
That did actually work. It's called Android.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I see this comment all the time: "Microsoft has the money and revenue streams to play the long game, to make bold bets, to stick it out. Early days yet."
Well, yes, Microsoft has a lot of money offshore and a lot of money coming in. But they don't have infinite money. The offshore money isn't "real" until they bring it home to spend and take a 40% haircut on it. They're sinking two billion a year into Bing and the rest of OSD, a billion into Nokia, billions in marketing to get their mobile business off the ground and pretend W8 is going super, and tens of billions in share buybacks and dividends to prop up their stock price, tens of billions a year in failed acquisitions. In the wise words of Bill Gates: "A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon it adds up to real money." It is not an inexhaustible spigot. They can "fail" every so often but once in a while they have to "win". They ain't been winning new money for a long time now.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to derail your conversation. But when I see this so idly said it makes me sad that so much money is being burned in a hopeless cause when I know what an able, competent, intelligent and compassionate man could do with it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I don't get the connection between this http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/11/15/171201/barnes-noble-names-microsofts-disputed-android-patents and what's happening now.
In fact, because of B&Ns stand, I would have bought a nook here in the UK.
D
Speaking as a UK consumer I couldn't give a flying toss in a hurricane.
I doubt the old nook and nook color will have windows 8 ported to it. I doubt the nook color could run it, but the newer nook tablet might. Or they'll just stop updates and create a Nook Surface if they want to continue making hardware.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
So Nook was a failure for B&N?
Pretty much. They're pretty much getting their asses handed to them by Amazon, Apple and Google. I'm not sure I know anyone who actually owns a Nook though obviously they have been selling a fair number. When people think technology, Barnes & Noble isn't exactly the first name that springs to mind. Though the Nook seems to be a decent product it has the vague scent of desperation about it. Given what happened with Borders one has to wonder if they are buying a product that is going to be abandoned by B&N down the road.
Microsoft buys you.
Farewell Nook, we hardly knew ya.
The sale of, uh, partnership agreement of the Nook should shore up B&N for a week or two.
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