Re:Microsoft Reduces Nook To An App For $300M
by ctdonath on Monday April 30, 2012 @08:06AM
(#3908855)
My iPad runs iBooks, Kindle, Nook, Nook Kids, Stanza, Kobo, Bookshelf, [Google] Play Books, Overdrive, and XComics. Save for iBooks, none of their retailers would get any money from me if they were locked to their associated hardware (and of those not having associated hardware, they exist precisely because they don't).
If B&N retains the content & server rights, they just landed a major coup for just $300M. Their hardware was just a way to distribute their software.
There's this funny thing about paper books: not only does each paper book contain full content in a convenient package, it includes the reader hardware. Digital books are pure content in need of a reader; the Nook (and Kindle and ...) was just a way to get reader hardware to readers so they could read the content; as general-purpose tablets proliferate, retailer-branded special-purpose reader-tablets will fade.
But yes, B&N beware of "Embrace, Extend & Extinguish". Make sure M$ stays in the OS business, not content.
If B&N retains the content & server rights, they just landed a major coup for just $300M. Their hardware was just a way to distribute their software.
There's this funny thing about paper books: not only does each paper book contain full content in a convenient package, it includes the reader hardware. Digital books are pure content in need of a reader; the Nook (and Kindle and ...) was just a way to get reader hardware to readers so they could read the content; as general-purpose tablets proliferate, retailer-branded special-purpose reader-tablets will fade.
But yes, B&N beware of "Embrace, Extend & Extinguish". Make sure M$ stays in the OS business, not content.