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Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
The Nook didn't crater in Q4 because it's a closed platform. B&N app is available on tablets and smartphones. iBooks are more locked down than Nook books. Amazon has both DRM and a proprietary format, and no native ePub support, and didn't support Overdrive until about a year ago. B&N won't suddenly make billions by adding a few apps or putting out an Android tablet.
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The closed platform certainly didn't help, did it? And while the B&N app is available on other platforms, people have to go out of their way to DL it, so it's not as front and center as it is on the Nook tablets. So selling more tablets might have sold more ebooks, not to mention clear up any inventory.
iBooks can afford to be more locked down than Nook books because it's part of a richer ecosystem. Same with Amazon's Kindle Fire.
What I don't get is that you dismiss every suggestion by everyone on how B&N might start to at least turn the corner. Yet you make no suggestion of your own. Are you saying they should just stick with the same old strategy and wait to die? Even if steps are successful in only helping them turn the corner but they eventually fail, isn't that at least the better road to take? Try some things new?
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Sure, B&N hasn't executed perfectly, but who does? Even Amazon has made many well-publicized mis-steps, which have caused many an MR poster to vow never to buy devices or ebooks from Amazon.
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See, Amazon is huge and into so many areas of selling. They can afford to make some major missteps in one area without crashing. B&N can't do that. And Amazon has never had the burden of so many B&M stores suddenly turning into dinosaurs.
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Ultimately, the problem isn't improper execution. None of its errors are genuine show-stoppers.
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Maybe there is no one single error that is a "show-stopper" by itself. But if you take all their missteps and add them together, well then it may ultimately stop the show.
--Pat