If Microsoft buys Nook?

[SMDBill]

If MS Buys Nook is a crazy article describing Microsoft's desire to buy the Nook and its online book business for $1B, but to also shut down Nook sales by the end of its fiscal year in June, 2014.

All those low priced Nooks looked great recently with the announcement of Google's 700k+ apps being available on the device, but to be completely discontinued in a year? There go the updates and support.

I was on the fence to buy one, but this sealed the deal. My next tablet will be Google or iPad, both having a vested interest in their ecosystem.

 

[paulsalter]

Some of the article doesn't make sense

They are planning on shutting down the hardware side of things and keeping the ebooks for sale (using apps like others do)

Why would you want to move your books from nook cloud as it says at the end, the bookstore is not affected

Did I miss something when I read the article?

 

[SMDBill]

I don't think you did. I just would be more worried about the whole ecosystem changing to favor MS in a way that will impact tablet owners stuck on a modified (heavily) android tablet no longer supported by any software updates. MS isn't going to keep pushing them in direct competition with Win RT and Win 8 tablets and owners of them.

Current and future owners will feel the pinch once they stop getting updates or support of any kind for the devices.

 

[paulsalter]

Not sure how popular the Nook tablets are, but I understand these going as they compete with the Windows tablets, although how many buy them to use as a tablet compared to a coloured ereader

e-Ink readers, not sure I see the point of getting rid of these, unless MS want to get all nook users on Windows tablets

Can't see that though, many people do not like tablets for reading and prefer e-Ink

Don't really know much about the Nook readers, they only came out last year here and I don't think they have been popular

 

[Liquorpuki]

Don't really know much about the Nook readers, they only came out last year here and I don't think they have been popular

They're basically budget tablets and along with the Kindle and the Nexus, were the first successful tablets that didn't come from Apple. The budget pricing from all 3 of these helped expand the tablet market to include a $200 segment. The Nook saved Barnes & Noble from going out like Borders. It was also unique in that it was popular among women.

I understand what MS is trying to do - buy B&N's IP and digital distribution system and use it as a feature to leverage Win8 tablet sales. I don't think it'll make much of a difference though because there are other distribution platforms like Kindle that are platform agnostic. For B&N though, that move would eventually kill them. If you're a media distribution company, you gotta have a digital strategy in place. Here's B&N trying to get rid of theirs.