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Originally Posted by Pajamaman
They're hanging in there. Not sure why. I presume they have a strategy and hope to bring it back. I hope they do. Competition is good.
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As poor as Nook sales are in the US, they just barely exceed Kobo sales worldwide so there's still money to be made. And with business dwindling at their brick and mortar stores, it makes sense to diversify into ebooks.
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Originally Posted by ZodWallop
It's a shame the way B&N bungled Nook. In the early days they were running neck and neck with Kindle. I remembered being wowed when the Nook ST with Glowlight first rolled out.
When I bought one, Barnes and Noble pushed the more open nature of the Nook. That it read epubs and you could buy those from stores other than B&N, that the Nook had expandable memory. They were even known for having very easy to crack DRM, so your Nook books didn't feel like a lock-in.
I think B&N wasn't ready for the Nook's success. And then they made an unannounced switch the DRM (which pissed off the hard core fans) and released the Nook Glowlight with only 512MB for sideloading. It was like they were a different company.
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Call my crazy but I think B&N could still turn things around if they decided to get serious about e-books. Now that Amazon is focused on things other than books, B&N has an opportunity to carve a niche for themselves in the reader market by making e-books a central focus. Revamping the website, rolling out more inspired Nook hardware, and using their stores to spotlight the Nook could get people talking again.
Since they use the same company that manufactures Kobo, there's really no excuse for them not to offer a more compelling e-reader. Otherwise whatever little market share they have left in the US could shrink further once Kobo enters the US market through Walmart.