Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
The funny thing is that when the Nook tablet refresh doesn't arrive next year, people will be wondering why....  |
Careful what you "ask" a contrarian.
The NookColor was generally well-received round these parts and in the hobbyist communnty at large. It certainly got B&N a lot of press in the tech community. And they beat Amazon to market by a year.
Funny thing, though; the NookColor only sold 250K units in its first year on the market. It (apparently) did wonders for B&N's magazine business but the app business is languishing and they do spend a fair amount of time fighting the hackers. It isn't particularly clear how much that entire line advances B&N's market position since, unlike Amazon, they don't have an inhouse media business. Regularly refreshing those tablets might just be more effort than they're worth.
So, in the spirit of contrarian-ness: would it really be a bad idea for B&N to slow their tablet refresh rate and instead ride the price curve down? It's not as if the current hardware is inadequate to their *core* books and mags business. Would it be a bad idea if the next Nook Tablet is a rebadged generic?
B&N is not Amazon. This is bad and it is good.
If they only focus on doing the exact *same* things as Amazon, then yes; they'll be in trouble. But if they focus on doing things Amazon *can't* (ship-to-store on internet pbook orders is the most obvious--Amazon's lockers being evidence Amazon sees this as a weakness) then they *can* prosper.
B&N's biggest problems vs Amazon come from where they are playing catch-up and the evidence so far suggests their management knows they need to go places Amazon isn't. NookColor was a nice attempt. It didn't pan out but it shows they can outflank them from time to time. (And if the next battleground is going to be education--as seems most likely--B&N has a huge untapped resource in the college bookstores.)
They are *not* passive victims.
They are still serious players.
And if investors aren't flocking to them a mere 48 hours after the Conspirators got called on the carpet, it may simply be that they are updating their spreadsheets.
B&N tried to sell themselves off last year while under the Price Fix regime. Who knows if, freed of it, they might be worth picking up for a media or tech company? Those are business where market share and growth prospects outweigh short-term profitability. (Just ask Rakuten.)
It'll take time (60-days plus) to evaluate the full impact of *limited* ebook discounting regimes. (Let's not gloss over that, while the feds blessed ebook discounting and loss leaders, they also hard-wired restrictions into their endorsement. Many of us see that as a boost for B&N and others not named Amazon.)
When it comes to evaluating the final impact of the DOJ case we first need to see how just which changes do get implemented and *how*. Way too early to be writing off B&N or bemoaning the end of the world.
The only thing certain is that change is imminent. And the only people who *need* to be afraid are those that fear change because they want stasis.
Those are the only guaranteed losers.
But then, they were guaranteed to lose anyway.