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What does the future hold for E-Ink readers? They are far superior for reading but useless in general. I could see myself getting a Kindle in a few months (I have a first-gen Nook) but after that I don't think they will be relevant as tablets continue to advance.
It's too bad this basically means the death of the e-ink Nook. It was really a much better reader than Kindle for a long time, but BN couldn't stay a step ahead and Kindle ended up running circles around them. If Nook had just cleaned up its dictionary, bumped up the resolution on the screen, improved its frontlight (as it was the frontlight "glaze" or whatever washed out the display significantly), and kept polishin…
I don't think the market for a hacker-friendly Nook is as big as you think it would be.
The first thing I do when I buy an Amazon ebook is get rid of the DRM. If I couldn't, I wouldn't buy it.
Don't underestimate the appeal of hackable.
For anyone curious about the motivations behind this -- this sale frees up B&N to take its brick and mortar stores private. The CEO Riggio (? -- name escapes me now) has been asking for different private equity groups to buy the nook ("New corp") assets for some time since he thinks the stores are much more profitable. Last quarter results only confirmed as much (Nook did horribly, brick and mortar held their own). The one piece holding up spinning off the brick and mortar business was what to do with new corp and how much of a premium to give back to shareholders. Probably more interesting is how much of the college textbook business Microsoft got in the deal (distribution rights, retail locations, etc.). The textbook business combined with the emergence of new interactive college education is arguably more strategic than the reader. Microsoft could try to compete with iBooks for the next generation of textbooks and thus require people to get Surfaces (or Win8 or whatever) for college classes. We have to wait for the SEC paperwork to see for sure. I have little confidence MS can execute on such a strategy, but it sure looks good on powerpoint. There also is a bit of bravado at play -- Microsoft needs to demonstrate to its partners and their investors it will come rescue them when needed (think Nokia and Dell).
The reality is that Amazon won the current generation of e-ink and online e-books. If color were to come to market (still just a prototype), it wouldn't be enough of a game changer. The next form factor to watch for and opportunity for someone to disrupt in e-ink is thin, flexible, and transparent e-ink -- the kind you can roll or fold up.
For tablets, Microsoft would likely adopt the Nook brand since it's slightly better known than the Surface, but otherwise they would throw all of the existing tech away. It's too dependent on Android, and Microsoft would prefer to push its own tech. It makes me wonder if Nook's announcement to open up the tablet was the GM's way of doing right by customers should Microsoft make an extreme change (this deal would have been known by the people who approved betting on Google Play for Nook).
The content play from this is questionable -- B&N is basically an American brand with most e-book sales growth happening elsewhere. Yes, Microsoft needs content in the US, but tech growth and new customers are elsewhere and this purchase doesn't really help Microsoft that much beyond what they could have gotten from the existing partnership.
It's too bad this basically means the death of the e-ink Nook. It was really a much better reader than Kindle for a long time, but BN couldn't stay a step ahead and Kindle ended up running circles around them. If Nook had just cleaned up its dictionary, bumped up the resolution on the screen, improved its frontlight (as it was the frontlight "glaze" or whatever washed out the display significantly), and kept polishin…
How does that saying go? If squares were round they'd be circles, or something like that.
It's too bad this basically means the death of the e-ink Nook. It was really a much better reader than Kindle for a long time, but BN couldn't stay a step ahead and Kindle ended up running circles around them. If Nook had just cleaned up its dictionary, bumped up the resolution on the screen, improved its frontlight (as it was the frontlight "glaze" or whatever washed out the display significantly), and kept polishin…
> If Nook had just cleaned up its dictionary, bumped up the resolution on the screen, improved its frontlight (as it was the frontlight "glaze" or whatever washed out the display significantly), and kept polishing the software, they might have stood a better chance. The epub capability is a huge win. How does that saying go? If squares were round they'd be circles, or something like that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the market for a hacker-friendly Nook is as big as you think it would be.
Perhaps, but there certainly was (and still is) a not-insignificant amount of people interested in hacking both Nooks and Kindles. Sell a hackable version at a big markup to please the nerds and make some money; regular folks will find them useless or too difficult and stick to the standard offering; meanwhile the nerds will evangelize the hardware for you. I think their big fear is people buying a hackable version a…
It is simple economics - as much as us (engineers, developers, etc) believe we are a large market, we are not. The overhead of creating a different SKU to serve <1% of a market is not enough. Besides, the money is not in hardware, it is in content.
What does the future hold for E-Ink readers? They are far superior for reading but useless in general. I could see myself getting a Kindle in a few months (I have a first-gen Nook) but after that I don't think they will be relevant as tablets continue to advance.
I see them as exactly that, dedicated reading devices. Tablets are great for some folks, but others like ereaders because: -E-ink can be stared at for long periods and in bright light; staring at a tablet screen for long periods gives many (including me) eye strain. -Tablets usually include many other apps and internet access, which is a huge distraction when you just want to focus on reading a book. When I'm reading…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If Nook had just cleaned up its dictionary, bumped up the resolution on the screen, improved its frontlight (as it was the frontlight "glaze" or whatever washed out the display significantly), and kept polishing the software, they might have stood a better chance. The epub capability is a huge win. How does that saying go? If squares were round they'd be circles, or something like that.
Russians say "If grandma had a beard she would be a grandpa"
This must be the money that MS bribed B&N with, after they they realized that their patent litigation against B&N was falling apart, and it could threaten their protection racket against other Android vendors. I guess B&N didn't have guts to reject the bribe and to fight against the troll to the end.
This time they really seem to want to buy it.
How is this anything other than Embrace-Extend-Extinguish? And what does microsoft have to gain from paying $1bn for a company (that's running a loss), and then discontinuing their product?