Riggio, the chain’s founder, largest stockholder, and chairman of the company’s board, is looking to buy both the Barnes & Noble Booksellers brick-and-mortar business and Barnesandnoble.com, according to an SEC filing.
The company’s e-book, e-reader, and tablet division, Nook Media, would apparently be spun off or possibly even shut down if the deal comes to pass. The Barnes & Noble board’s strategic committee must still review the plan and the company said in a statement that there is no timetable for that happening yet.
There has been no word yet what might become of the Nook division, or what this move could mean for Nook device and app users who have downloaded books, magazines, and apps. Microsoft currently owns 17.6 percent of Barnes & Noble’s Nook subsidiary. The software giant did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It may well be that the iPad and Kindle will dominate their respective markets, but that doesn’t mean they’re without similar risk. If you’re sinking money into digital copies of anything, make sure you have the right to take those copies with you to a new device if the device you’re currently using goes under. Because sooner or later, all devices go under.
Fully one short day after I questioned the utility and validity of crowd-sourced product reviews, the New York Times and PC Magazine post contradictory assessments of the Nook — Barnes & Nobles’ e-reader.
buggy. In four days, my Nook locked up twice and displayed an “Android operating system has crashed” message twice.
might just be the most sophisticated e-Book reader on the market.
PCMag reports no bugs, but does not state whether the device was used for a prolonged period or merely tested for feature compliance.