Microsoft Invests $300 Million in Nook to Take on Amazon and Apple in E-Book Market

[rutledjw]

I think Microsoft is on to a potentially good thing here.

What if Microsoft offers a version of Windows 8 that will run on the Nook? (IMHO, they'd be crazy to pass up that opportunity.) All of a sudden consumers have a compelling reason to choose the Nook over the Kinde. They'll be getting a tablet OS that actually has support, and an upgrade path behind it.

Agreed. The color nook has better specs than the Amazon Fire, B&N has far better customer service and a pretty loyal fanbase albeit smaller than Amazon. But yes, this could be a great way to enter the market with a distribution channel in place!

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Apple and Microsoft have made some of the same moves, but it surprises me how often people totally ignore the fact. They praise Apple for the same move they scold Microsoft for.

I HEARTILY agree with this! Look, I'm an unabashed Apple fan. I've bought several macbooks (2 for myself), iPhones, 3 iPads, countless %#*% $30 adapters, and "turned" both my parents, cousins, and a few friends to Apple. I like a MANY of their products.

BUT - a lot of Apple's actions smack of what MS did back in the 90s. Trying to lock people into using ONLY their platform. Let the quality drive people to make a decision. Their tactivs in some areas I find distasteful in the least

 

[theloon]

Microsoft in..Noop soon gone

Another blackeye coming for this one. No one is buying this device, so why would they start now just to get an MS reader app. Doh!

#FAIL

 

[jcrowe]

As one poster in the other thread pointed out, the government does not object to monopolies. They object to price fixing and collusion. So if Amazon regains a near 100% share by "dumping" that's just fine with the government. Dumping is only illegal by foreign companies.

BTW is Amazon "foreign" due to the same tax strategies all the other big tech companies use?

Just askin'.

Actually, government collusion is the only way a monopoly can exist. Amazon has no monopoly, but their actions have presented competitors with a good reason to compete based on price, service and/or a combination.

 

[Tiger8]

I agree. And, Microsoft had plenty opportunity in the late 1990s to make a viable market for e-books (remember their ebook reader) and mp3 players, but they missed with half-baked innovations. I am glad they have the resources to try to make a 3-way competition for ebooks because consumers benefit from market competition. But, I suspect Microsoft will fail again and the Nook will be a casualty of this failure. god help Barnes & Noble.

Wait Microsoft has some success....

(Retro: Bob and The Clip)...
Vista...
Zune...
Kin...
Windows Phone...
Windows Phone again with Nokia...

Ok I see what you are saying. God help B&N

 

[TheTSArt]

Nice fallback plan... Nook = Windows 9.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I love how people still compare a tablet to an e-reader.

Misinformed journalism at its best.

What would you call the Nook Tablet?

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Another blackeye coming for this one. No one is buying this device, so why would they start now just to get an MS reader app. Doh!

#FAIL

...Except it's the most sold product in Barnes and Noble stores, nationwide. Seriously, how are you able to argue with success and keep a straight face?

 

[tomccabe]

The Nook isn't a great device, it's over priced, and the bookstore is under-welming. I guess it makes logical sense for MS to put their money there instead of, say, doing it right and build a decent product. Sometimes they amaze me on their moves. I had already thought the nook was dead; now I'm sure of it.

iPad or Kindle for book reading, those are the standards.

So the baseline for "standard" now is ~10% (ipad ebook share)? The Nook accounts for over 2x as many ebook sales as the ipad. But I guess this is Macrumors so Apple is the leader in each and every category it sells a product in.

 

[tomccabe]

the market is saturated with ebook readers.. if they're tablets or dedicated eink devices.

throwing money at the nook now is like trying to improve no the pencil.

Yeah, why enter a market that is already TWO DAMN YEARS OLD?

I agree with you that they market the heck out of it and it gets good position in every store. What they don't do much of is get aggressive with the book prices. From a readers perspective, I think ebooks should be much more affordable than they currently are. Books are expensive to print and distribute, yet an ebook is doesn't have those same costs. No printing fees, no shipping fees, no store returns needed, - even pagination and layout are much simpler in the ebook world, yet titles often sell for only a few bucks less than the print version. B&N sells their products in the store for full MSRP, and that works for some buyers.

I really wish this perception of eBooks would disappear. eBooks, like websites, are not created by "magic," like many who don't understand the technology seem to believe. eBooks also need to be manufactured. The print books are not being made from eBooks, rather vice versa. There are SUBSTANTIAL costs in creating eBooks. Maybe you are not as familiar with them as you are with easily understood "brick and mortar" retailing, but I assure you they are not much, if at all, cheaper to produce than their print counterparts. Most of the costs of "making" a book are not coming from manufacture and shipping. ~90% of the costs behind publishing a book go to the talent behind it (authors, editors and designers).

If you think eBooks are free or cheap to produce, grab a paperback off of your shelf (I'll make it easy for you too and not request a book with any pictures or formatting. A James Patterson book will suffice), and simply private message me the epub. Also, please make sure it works across multiple devices and is future proof. Should only take you about 5 minutes, right?

 

[AidenShaw]

Judging by all the downvotes in this thread, it appears the Microsoft Defense Force has been mobilized.

Or, there are a lot of stupid, juvenile, knee-jerk comments that deserve to be down-voted.

Apple is the largest company in the world....

Apple has the highest market cap of any public company in the US - very big difference from "largest company in the world".

And, Apple's dropped $25B in value the last week - market cap is a fickle number.

Microsoft has kept the industry back for too long and because of it, we are behind where we should be in terms of interoperability, openess and innovation.

On the other hand, compare the ubiquitousness of the Windows PC in the late 90's with the terrible fragmentation of proprietary and incompatible systems (even the UNIX systems were very incompatible with other UNIX systems).

Where would the web be today without the "lingua franca" of Windows to guarantee that one app/webpage could be used by hundreds of millions of people?

 

[smoledman]

Where would the web be today without the "lingua franca" of Windows to guarantee that one app/webpage could be used by hundreds of millions of people?

Don't forget that Apple would not be the behemoth it is today without Microsoft. The iPod did not become a real hit until Apple wrote iTunes for Windows and everyone could now own one. They parlayed the cash from that into iPhone and the rest is history. Steve Jobs was very resistant to doing iTunes for Windows. If he had his way, Apple would have remained a boutique company.

 

[KnightWRX]

Where would the web be today without the "lingua franca" of Windows to guarantee that one app/webpage could be used by hundreds of millions of people?

You didn't use the Web... seriously, Microsoft extending and refusing to implement W3C standards is what kept the Web back for so long. We were discussing webapps as a replacement for desktop apps 10 years ago... until IE killed the market with its locked down language extensions and refusal to adhere to a proper DOM implementation, creating all sorts of interoperability and openess issues.

No really, you didn't say the Web. Worse example you could've used. Internet Explorer is what got them in trouble for monopoly abuse twice.

If you had been a user of alternative platforms in those days, trying to write dynamic, rich web apps using W3C standards, you'd know how much Microsoft was trying to turn Tim's idea for an open document exchange format into Microsoft WWW™.

Heck, they couldn't even get proper PNG support in IE to save us from Unisys and the GIF LZW patents. How hard is implementing an alpha channel ? Not a transparency bit, an alpha channel Microsoft. SVG, let's not even go there. I think IE's first SVG implementation was a 3rd party one because Microsoft couldn't bother with a published, defacto W3C standard.

 

[AidenShaw]

You didn't use the Web... seriously, Microsoft extending and refusing to implement W3C standards is what kept the Web back for so long.

"Kept it back" while web usage exploded for "so long"? Think about it. Back then it was HP-UX vs AIX vs OSF vs Ultrix vs Solaris vs VMS vs... - it was only when "write for Windows" became the norm that web use exploded.

Web coder since 1991....

...Microsoft was trying to turn Tim's idea for an open document exchange format into Microsoft WWW™.

Oh how cute - you're on a "first name" basis with TBL?

Has he ever come up to you to say "Hi - what are you doing now?" at a conference - he has to me.

How many times has "Tim" been to your home? He's been my guest at least 5 times.

Do not pull the "Tim" card on me. I worked with him for eight years.

 

[lilcosco08]

One of the first benefits for customers will be a NOOK application for Windows 8

Why hasn't this happened with OS X & iBooks yet?

 

[KnightWRX]

"Kept it back" while web usage exploded for "so long"? Think about it. Back then it was HP-UX vs AIX vs OSF vs Ultrix vs Solaris vs VMS vs... - it was only when "write for Windows" became the norm that web use exploded.

Web coder since 1991....




Oh how cute - you're on a "first name" basis with TBL?

Has he ever come up to you to say "Hi - what are you doing now?" at a conference - he has to me.

How many times has "Tim" been to your home? He's been my guest at least 5 times.

Do not pull the "Tim" card on me. I worked with him for eight years.

Funny, you failed to address the arguments, instead you chose to attack me.

Yet everytime someone does this to you, you call out "Ad Hominem" on them! At least be consistent.

 

[lilcosco08]

Oh how cute - you're on a "first name" basis with TBL?

Has he ever come up to you to say "Hi - what are you doing now?" at a conference - he has to me.

How many times has "Tim" been to your home? He's been my guest at least 5 times.

Do not pull the "Tim" card on me. I worked with him for eight years.

A little obsessed with Tim, eh?

 

[AidenShaw]

Funny, you failed to address the arguments, instead you chose to attack me.

Funny, you chose to ignore this part of my post:

"Kept it back" while web usage exploded for "so long"? Think about it. Back then it was HP-UX vs AIX vs OSF vs Ultrix vs Solaris vs VMS vs... - it was only when "write for Windows" became the norm that web use exploded.

Web coder since 1991....

That seems to "address the arguments", no?

A little obsessed with Tim, eh?

No, just irritated that a poser on the Internet would pretend to be on a first name basis with a personal friend.

And, outside of face-to-face it was always "TBL", not "Tim". There were a couple of other "Tim"s in the office, but only one "TBL".

 

[KnightWRX]

Funny, you chose to ignore this part of my post:

That seems to "address the arguments", no?

Not at all. We were discussing the Web, not big iron Unix of the 90s. Unless you mean unifying the web into Microsoft's version of it for Internet Explorer was the best approach... and then I can just show you the stagnation of IE 6 as more proof that that approach caused havoc on the industry as a whole.

We're still stuck with "webapps" that only work on IE 6 where I work. In 2012. They're far from rich.

You didn't address any of my argument at all, brushed aside all mentions of the W3C standards and Microsoft's failure to implement them in a bid to control and lock the web to Windows and Internet Explorer.

Microsoft was bad for the industry. Plain and simple. Thank god we don't all have a limited view and managed to get out of that phase where they actually had the control to do this stuff.

 

[Macist]

I can certainly see MS use their monopoly position to dominate the eBook market...

Oh, hang on, thought it was 1996 for a moment there...

MS is fading fast.

 

[HMU]

What about iTunes-U in this respect?

I think it's strange that nobody mentioned the iTunes U (University) because this is apparantly the same focus that Microsoft and B&N have with their objectives to reach the educative market... Perhaps iTunes-U hasn't had the attention of publicity that it should have had? Anyway if you take a dive in it is huge! (It was a goal of Steve Jobs to reach and supply students all over the world with free knowlegde, published by many universities... although, yes mainly US-based).

 

[KnightWRX]

I can certainly see MS use their monopoly position to dominate the eBook market...

Oh, hang on, thought it was 1996 for a moment there...

MS is fading fast.

This has nothing to do with the ebook market, though it is about Microsoft trying to keep a stranglehold on the patent racket they've got going :

You're mistaking their motive I think :

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/11/15/171201/barnes-noble-names-microsofts-disputed-android-patents

Barnes and Noble are one of the players who stood up to Microsoft's patent racket, refused to sign the NDA and reveiled the trash Microsoft was using to threaten other Android OEMs with royalty payments for "protection" (amongst which is the VFAT long filename patent which is highly disputed).

That is probably why Microsoft is now "investing" in Barnes and Noble. Shut 'em up, get 'em in-line so they continue their racket unabated.

 

[jonnysods]

Sometimes I wonder if some of you know that Microsoft is a software company...

So this article is incorrect?

 

[PracticalMac]

Ok I have to stop you right there, as much as I love Apple, Amazon were the ones that pretty much made eBooks a viable alternative to real books, before the original kindle in 2007, ebooks were just for geeks and 'get rich fast' internet ebooks, but the Kindle was truly revolutionary.

Amazon did to ebooks what iTunes did for MP3 music.

Of course Amazon did.
I was just pointing out Apple pioneered online distribution of media (mainly music, video, some Audio Books).
Amazon does get credit for some innovation in eBook distribution, tho.

 

[iMusings]

Calm down people, and to those that are dribbling out the edges of their mouths about Microsoft being UN-innovative, let's face it. Apple isn't the most innovative company either.

The only innovation they are good at is skiving out of their tax burdens:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/b...-aims-at-low-tax-states-and-nations.html?_r=1

 

[IDUGSF]

A desktop app is the same as Internet Explorer

What is missing from this post is that the Nook has a 25% market-share for ereaders and epubs and Microsoft sees a way to sell that content. Microsoft isn't doing anything differently than it did with Internet Explorer: bundling an app with its operating system so that it has a direct pipeline to content, which is the same that Apple does with iTunes. It just takes Microsoft a while to copy what Apple does first.
http://www.idugsf.com/2012/05/microsoft-invests-300-million-in-nook

 

[Lennholm]

What is missing from this post is that the Nook has a 25% market-share for ereaders and epubs and Microsoft sees a way to sell that content. Microsoft isn't doing anything differently than it did with Internet Explorer: bundling an app with its operating system so that it has a direct pipeline to content, which is the same that Apple does with iTunes. It just takes Microsoft a while to copy what Apple does first.
http://www.idugsf.com/2012/05/microsoft-invests-300-million-in-nook

Nice logic there; Microsoft does something they've done before with IE, that Apple later also did with iTunes but somehow MS is copying Apple?