B&N CEO on the future of Nook

[Tomk2]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

.........I remain of the same general opinion I’ve had on this for some time. Sell the user base to Kobo with some kind of deal that provides benefits to BN. Have Kobos in the BN stores........ .

I don't think that is likely. When Daunt took over book stores in the UK that sold Kindles, he got rid of the Kindles . He didn't like selling someone else's readers even when his company didn't have their own.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Tomk2

I don't think that is likely. When Daunt took over book stores in the UK that sold Kindles, he got rid of the Kindles . He didn't like selling someone else's readers even when his company didn't have their own.

You’re right but I can dream.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Tomk2

I don't think that is likely. When Daunt took over book stores in the UK that sold Kindles, he got rid of the Kindles . He didn't like selling someone else's readers even when his company didn't have their own.

There is zero point in a bookstore other than Amazon selling Kindles. How would it help a bookstore to sell books?
An ereader is a product for a supermarket, gadget shop etc. It helps sells the books of the store that commissioned it, unfortunately. That's why Kindle is #1, because Amazon sells 90% of ebooks. The ereaders other than Kobo, Nook and Kindle are niche.
Unless there is some sort of unlikely event, even the Kobo will become a niche product like the others.
The EU is investigating Amazon's promotion and pricing structures. KDP select, Amazon's own titles and Kindle Unlimited are predatory and anti-competitive.
Why would I buy a nook to buy B&N ebooks when it's more awkward than a Kindle or Kobo to backup or read on anything other than a Nook? At least with Betamax and Minidisc there were 3rd party players, not just the Sony products and they died.

[droopy]

I'm happy to read this news! More competition leads to better products at better prices.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

They don't exist on the Kobo either, with epubs. Still, the epub layout on the Nook is even better than the epub layout on the Kobo. OTOH the Nook is slower.

I find the ePub layout on Kobo to be rather good. I cannot say how good it is on a nook other then the STR. On the STR, I am not all that happy with the layout because the font rendering engine is lousy. The fonts on my H2 do look a lot better then the fonts on the nook STR. I've said that anout nook and Sony back in the days of the 650.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Apache

My Sony Reader was great for supporting series. I now read on a Surface Pro. I have Calibre installed on my Surface Pro and can manage my collection directly.
Apache

Sony supports collections. That's as far as it goes. So Sony was not great, but a lot better then Kindle or nook. BUt now, Kobo takes it to new levels with the ability to store the series name and with the new series feature tat makes series a lot easier to deal with. Is there any other Reader as good with series as Kobo?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Sorry man. I PROMISE I'm not being intentionally dense. But I still don't see where you are going here.

Are you implying that the the Nook is a rebranded Hanlin, Netronix or Boox? You've implied it three times based on nothing that I can see. The current batch of Nooks (the Glowlight 3 and the 7.8" Glowlight Plus have a different design from anything on the market.

Your repeated insinuation that these are just some rebranded Chinese readers makes me think you have no clue what you are talking about.

As for how far back I go, I worked at B&N when the first Nook rolled out and my first reader was the Nook ST with Glowlight. Nook has always had superior hardware design to their competitors.

I agree that nook is not some re-branded Reader. Nobody makes bezels as bad as B&N. As for the software, oh vey.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

II’ll give that Nook were the first major brand to have the light at all.

That is incorrect. Sony was the first with the PRS-700 to have a built-in light. Granted it was lousy, but it was the first

With the nook with Glowlight, the light layer was prone to scratching or getting light spots. The light layer was not all that sturdy

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by droopy

I'm happy to read this news! More competition leads to better products at better prices.

Then why are Kindles so expensive? Amazon doesn't have better prices, They have higher prices.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That is incorrect. Sony was the first with the PRS-700 to have a built-in light. Granted it was lousy, but it was the first

With the nook with Glowlight, the light layer was prone to scratching or getting light spots. The light layer was not all that sturdy

Sorry, I should have specified "major brands" to mean brands that are still active in the ereader market. I believe Sony had dropped out of that field six years ago.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Sorry, I should have specified "major brands" to mean brands that are still active in the ereader market. I believe Sony had dropped out of that field six years ago.

Sony was a major brand back then. So again, wrong.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I agree that nook is not some re-branded Reader. Nobody makes bezels as bad as B&N. As for the software, oh vey.

Again, in your opinion. For those who like the new Nook Glowlights, the wider bezel is often one of the reasons why. Choice is good.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Sony supports collections. That's as far as it goes. So Sony was not great, but a lot better then Kindle or nook. BUt now, Kobo takes it to new levels with the ability to store the series name and with the new series feature tat makes series a lot easier to deal with. Is there any other Reader as good with series as Kobo?

Nook supports collections (shelves) and series. Unfortunately, Calibre can't access them. You can make your own collections on the device (which I've never bothered with), but the user has no control over series at all.

So Nook has series, but I'm not sure how well it's integrated since it only works with books purchased from B&N.

In the Nook library, there's a tab for All Titles and then a tab for Shelves.

Under All Titles, you can view by Author or Title. If you sort by author, you can stack books written by the same author. I'd assume if you sort by title, you can stack by Series (it's an option in settings, but like I said, I've never been able to use it).

I do like how Nook handles the library. It's not as fine tuned as Kobo, but I think it does a good job. It's just a shame there's not better integration with Calibre.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Sony was a major brand back then. So again, wrong.

“Still active” Jon. Sony is not still active in this market nor have they been for over half a decade. Sony was active in 2014 but that was the last time they put out a consumer level ereader, and professional for that matter.

I know you love your Sony reader but the world and even Sony have moved on.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Sony was active in 2014 but that was the last time they put out a consumer level ereader, and professional for that matter.

I know you love your Sony reader but the world and even Sony have moved on.

An interesting claim that 2014 was the last time Sony put out a professional ereader since the DPT-S1 was released that year. However the successor devices—the 13.3" DPT-RP1 and the 10.3" DPT-CP1—were released in 2017 and 2018 respectively. One of my clients loves them for the ability to encrypt on-board data which is considered critical for their law firm.

They were looking at the Remarkable 2 for their next order but the 10 week delay and the lack of on-board encryption were the deal killers. Evidently the queries to Remarkable got a response that confused Google's encryption in the cloud and during transfers as being the same as on-board encryption.