Quote:
Originally Posted by tubemonkey
And since this version will only be sold at B&N, only the Nook faithful will hear about it. That means anyone else in the market for a Galaxy Tab will end up getting stock Samsung from a big box store.
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True, perhaps, but keep in mind that B&N isn't expecting to reap millions in profits from device sales. They want to sell media. And a lot of people who might buy that media might browse B&N's shelves in B&M stores. Those are people who won't see
anything from B&N if they don't offer a device in-store. In other words, building the legions of NOOK faithful is the
intent. The ability to buy mom, dad, grandma or grandpa or any other loved one a device that they can use without being a techie, and count on (usually) local in-store support is a huge plus that nobody else selling tablets has except apple. (Not that I'm aware of!) Considering the way age demographics are going in the US, perhaps that's a smart move. So yeah, it's the
Jitterbug phone of tablets.
B&N doesn't have a chance trying to compete on hardware. They tried. They thought they were Apple. They lost.
Badly. I think they've learned some lessons, and will be content to grow profitable media sales rather than the low-margin device sales.
I think they're happy to let Amazon and Samsung slug it out for the razor-thin profits on device sales and sell books... and maybe video. It's what they know, it's what they do. It makes sense. Well, to me at least.