Barnes and Noble and Microsoft End Nook Partnership

[Someone1234]

I never understood and still don't understand this partnership.

So B&N has retail stores and Nook. Nook pre-Microsoft was Android based. They already had a Nook app coming out for Windows 8/RT. So when Microsoft invested a ton of money what was the ROI? Were they hoping to ship Nook devices with Windows RT on it? Or was there some other end-game?

300m is a lot of money and I don't understand what the pay off was even meant to be here.

[super_sloth]

That's because this was never about Microsoft investing in the Nook.

Microsoft's investment was really just a settlement with Barnes and Noble in everything other than name.

Microsoft sued B&N (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12814018) for infringing on the patents it's been collecting royalties from Android manufacturers for. B&N then counter-sued (http://www.phonearena.com/news/Barnes---Noble-countersues-Mi...).

Once Microsoft invested in the Nook business, the whole thing got dropped. Makes you wonder if Microsoft were concerned that B&N actually putting up a fight might bring the whole of their lucrative Android licensing business in jeopardy.

[msoad]

Nook was a company built by investments by B&N, Pearson and Microsoft. It was terribly executed but the idea was to help Microsoft complete their digital media catalog that was lacking books and help Pearson and B&N get into digital bookselling.

Unfortunately almost none of those happened!

[dataminded]

My rationalization of the investment is that B&N's partnership with publishers is/was tremendously valuable and would be very difficult/time consuming to build. It made more sense to partner with NOOK in order to secure access to that content than to try and build at Microsoft.

[gdilla]

This never made sense. It may have been interesting if Microsoft had leveraged the B&N physical real estate to let users play with their new hardware, eg Surfaces, but that never happened. Nook continued to be the oft forgotten Android based ecosystem it always was.

[shmerl]

So will now MS require B&N to pay for patents again?

[rbanffy]

Well... The patent list they use to extort Android makers is not a secret anymore, so there is no way B&N could threaten Microsoft with that.

But I guess they now enjoy a perpetual license to those patents anyway.

[megatroll]

Interesting turn of events. I wonder how this will affect the e-reader industry.

[tn13]

Barnes and Noble should ideally end the entire Nook business as well. Every month I spend around $50 buying books at a physical B&N. I am just happy to buy their books on a standard Android App. Not sure what purpose the e-reader serves.

[checker]

I'm not sure why you're writing off e-readers. I love my Nook. It's not as heavy as a book and its battery life is awesome. Also, The E-paper screen really is easier on my eyes and I can get "any" book I want instantly. It's somewhat analogous to the transition from CD player to iPod.

[brandonmenc]

> Not sure what purpose the e-reader serves.

Carrying around hundreds of books is the obvious killer feature.

[CrazedGeek]

There's a good amount of people that prefer reading on E Ink screens over normal screens.

[dminor]

They are in the process of spinning it out, so it will either live or die on its own.

[rbanffy]

I too enjoy buying paper books, but I do not enjoy carrying too many of them.