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Apple Considering Barnes & Noble Acquisition?

Timeline

Apple buys B&N

B&N bookstore, entire available e-book stock, integrated into iTunes for iDevice availability

Next version of Nook is more of a scaled-down, cheaper iPad, the iPad Reader.

Apple instantly has an even bigger inroad into academic purchases.

More kids grow up on Apple products in a serious context, school.
 
I don't know if it makes sense for Apple to purchase B&N just for the ebook deals and store locations. Apple is very careful about where they open their stores. They couldn't possibly be interested in more than 10 of B&N's locations across the US. As for the ebook catalogue. Apple already has deals with many of these publishers, who will hopefully be looking to assist iBooks catalogue after the loss of Borders.

I don't really trust this source, but I do hope iBooks comes to Mac in September. I don't believe it will be a part of iTunes, though. Seems like it should be a independent app in the Mac App Store.
 
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rorschach said:
This is silly. What would Apple do with all the brick-and-mortar stores?
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Let them continue to operate as per usual in the hopes of making a profit.

chrmjenkins said:
Apple has absolutely no interest in textbook and book B&M stores or online distribution. Nor do I think they would buy them simply to gain their e-book marketshare anyway.
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Who says they have to do either of those things?

Not that I'm saying this deal is going to happen, but businesses buy out other businesses all the time. Sometimes they are in related sectors/industries (retail, as in this case), sometimes they are not. A major tobacco company bought out a major food and beverage company, but they have never sold their tobacco products in the same boxes as the food products.

Business 101: If you can buy a something that will make a profit, buy it before the next guy does.
 
"plus another 600 college bookstores"

That right there would be kind of interesting. "Apple Retail Store Mini" for all your late night no doze induced spontaneous Mac purchases.
 
Unless there are some patents involved or they come with some special deals with publishers (maybe textbooks?), this makes little sense. Or maybe Apple shuttering the last physical bookstore drives people into iBooks even faster? But it's already happening anyway, don't know why they'd need to spend $1B+ to make it happen.
 
chrmjenkins said:
Apple has absolutely no interest in textbook and book B&M stores or online distribution. Nor do I think they would buy them simply to gain their e-book marketshare anyway.
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And who appointed you as Apple's Public Relations spokesperson?
 
If this is even remotely true, they'd be beyond stupid to buy Borders when it was failing. The brand was already tainted with failure, and that's something Apple wants to stay away from.

Barnes and Noble could make sense in that it has an established digital distribution system and its own tablet with relatively good penetration for markets who don't want an iPad but still want an e-reader. The only negative here would be the nook's use of Android.

Anyway, it's really only speculation. Just like the rumors about buying Netflix.
 
chrmjenkins said:
Apple has absolutely no interest in textbook and book B&M stores or online distribution. Nor do I think they would buy them simply to gain their e-book marketshare anyway.
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Why would Apple not be interested in textbooks? They're highly profitable and if delivered electronically as iBooks, that's all the more iOS or OS X devices sold to read them on. Apple needs to have a strong presence in education and delivering electronic textbooks to students who are buying more iOS devices is a great way to do that.
 
Dateline: June 2056
(AP) Appleville - Formerly Cupertino
Apple today announced the acquisition of Chuckie Cheese, making Apple the sole owner of every corporation in the world. A spokesman said they plan on rolling out different colored Apple logos so people will be able to tell the difference between product lines, and in the case of Chuckie Cheese all pies will have the distinctive shape of the ubiquitous Apple logo.

The corpse of Steve Jobs will also attend the upcoming WWDC at the Steve Jobs Center for Awesomeness in Appleville. He is expected to appear for the obligatory 5 minute standing ovation and then be propped in a corner casting his infamous evil eye.

Like my weird story, this is a weird rumor. Can't see the point in it besides more Apple stores. Books????
 
Trauma1 said:
Business 101: If you can buy a something that will make a profit, buy it before the next guy does.
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I've been affiliated with a few businesses that believed this sort of thing but didn't understand that some business models were outside their core competencies. It usually doesn't end well.

That's not the kind of mistake Apple seems prone to making. Not that they don't make any mistakes, but they don't usually make that one.
 
in a way this makes some sense. it would allow apple to put the iPad into a market where digital books and magazines would be most likely.
 
John.B said:
I've been affiliated with a few businesses that believed this sort of thing but didn't understand that some business models were outside their core competencies. It usually doesn't end well.
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Agree 100%. But like I said, there are examples where companies with extremely different philosophies, missions, visions, and markets have come together to profit immensely.

Doubtful that this deal would happen, but it would "make more sense" than some of the ones that have actually happened as these two actually share similar outlets.
 
Border's might be cheaper if they want locations for Apple stores. Then again it makes sense to buy Barnes and Nobles to get Apple Stores on University/College campuses. Apple could also start selling textbooks to students on the iPad.
 
My guess would be that Apple would buy them to basically kill the Nook and possibly the last of brick and mortar bookstores, pushing people to online sales through Apple.

But no, it doesn't make much sense that Apple would buy them.
 
Steve Jobs, floating sly rumors so Ballmer will jump in and make a big bid for B&N? *snicker*

That's what I'd do. If I were Jobs.
 
Torrijos said:
Don't see them buying a Book resellers but a good clean simple reader on OS X would be swell.
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Look at this. http://calibre-ebook.com/about

It is very good and finally lets you manage and read Kindle, Nook, iPad and so on all on the same app seemleesly. It's easy to use and very "Mac-like" interface.

The software runs on Mac, Linux and Windows. It can also be a server so you keep you books on (say) your Mac but you can access them on the Linux netbook and Nook.
 
Buy it to kill the nook maybe? The nook color does seem like a nice cheap Android tablet when hacked.

With Borders going under, I do wonder when B&N will collapse. The local one here is pushing eReaders like crazy at kiosks and has a ridiculously large coffee shop. The coffee shop alone takes up nearly half of the store! There's hardly any books with magazines covering one wall and kids' books covering another good chunk of space. I'm a bit more surprised B&N isn't the store that's liquidating right now. At least they weren't stupid like Borders and started selling overpriced music and movies.
 
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