With Nook Deal, a Hint of Microsoft Hardware

Microsoft does not make its own hardware products, except, of course, in the rare cases when it does, like the Xbox videogame console, the Zune music player and computer mice. In the PC and phone markets, though, Microsoft has been extraordinarily careful to say it wants to create only the software that powers those devices, leaving the hardware to outside partners.

But the company’s decision to invest in the Nook e-book business of the struggling retailer Barnes & Noble offers some tantalizing clues that Microsoft may be rethinking its position on hardware.

First, there is the Microsoft investment itself in the new Barnes & Noble e-book subsidiary: $300 million for a 17.6 percent stake, plus an additional $305 million in payments over five years. There is speculation that Barnes & Noble, as a result of this investment, will create new Nook devices that are based on Windows 8, a coming operating system designed for devices with touch-sensitive screens.   Full article

Tablet and E-Reader Sales Soar

There was no must-have toy of Christmas 2011 — for youngsters, anyway.

For adults, tablet computers and e-readers were the gifts of choice, judging by a new report that indicates the number of adults in the United States who own tablets and e-readers nearly doubled from mid-December to early January.

The report, which is expected to be released on Monday, confirms what book publishers say they have experienced in the last few weeks: a big jump in e-book sales after the holidays. A similar e-book boom came immediately after Christmas 2010.

The report, from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, found that the share of adults who owned tablet computers increased to 19 percent from 10 percent, with the same increase for adults who owned e-readers.  Full article

New Nook Is Latest Entry in Tablet Wars

Barnes & Noble answered Amazon’s challenge in the tablet wars on Monday, introducing a $249 color device called the Nook Tablet.

Speaking at Barnes & Noble’s store in Manhattan’s Union Square, William Lynch, the company’s chief executive, set the new Nook directly up against Amazon’s recently released Kindle Fire, promoting what he described as the Nook’s advantages in memory and multimedia capability.

“The Kindle Fire, and they do a lot of things well, is a vending machine for Amazon services,” Mr. Lynch said. “We’re going to partner with the world’s most popular music services. We’re going to let the consumers choose.”   Full story

Nook Color Gets Apps, Flash and More. Officially a Tablet.

“The $250 Nook Color just became the best value in the tablet world, as Barnes & Noble adds apps, email and a Web browser capable of Flash video.  People who own the Nook Color can upgrade by downloading the firmware at nookcolor.com/update, or wait for it to be pushed to their Nook via Wi-Fi. Since the update brings the internal OS to Android 2.2 (Froyo), the browser will support Flash.

It’s important to note that the Nook Color is not a fully supported Android tablet, complete with Google’s Android App Market. You can only run apps that come from B&N store. But there are already 125 apps and games, among them popular favorites like Angry Birds, Pulse reader, Pandora, Uno, Epicurious and Drawing Pad — an iOS app that is only now making its move to Android.”  Story

Sony Introduces New E-Readers

On Wednesday [today] Sony will introduce a new line of e-readers and applications for iPhones and Android phones.

Sony has updated each of its three e-readers. The Reader Pocket Edition, with its 5-inch screen, weighs less than many of its competitors. The Reader Touch Edition has a 6-inch screen and the Reader Daily Edition is the biggest of the bunch at 7 inches.

Full story here.

Among E-Readers, Competition Heats Up

WHEN Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, introduced the iPad, he bluntly took aim at the rapidly emerging e-reader market. “Amazon has done a great job” with the Kindle, he said. “We’re going to stand on their shoulders and go a little bit further.”  The iPad’s full-color screen and its ability to browse the Web and run thousands of applications certainly make it more versatile than the Kindle, but Apple is not the only company bringing more than just black-on-white text to readers.
AsusTek, Dell and Hewlett-Packard will soon be following Apple’s lead, bringing to market large-screen tablets that are ideal for reading books and newly formatted digital magazines and newspapers. And unlike Amazon’s and Sony’s stand-alone e-readers, which are limited by monochrome E Ink screens, the new multipurpose devices provide access to the Web and other applications.
Does this mean dedicated digital reader devices will be landing in the grave? Not quite.

Full story continues here.

Why Apple’s iBooks Numbers Are Meaningless

There was e-book news on Monday at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference: Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, said that big publishers had told him that sales of e-books for the iPad now accounted for 22 percent of all e-book sales.

Amazon.com can pretty much dismiss that number as overstated — but its execs still have good reason to worry about the threat Apple poses to the Kindle.

Full story continues here.

New Kindle Expected This Summer, Touch Possible Later

Amazon could release a new slimmer Kindle in August, Bloomberg News reports, citing “two people familiar with its plans.”

Bloomberg reports that the new Kindle would be thinner than existing models and although the next model would still offer a black and white screen, it would have a sharper and more responsive display.

Full story continues here.

Skiff and Sprint to Release New Ebook Reader

Sprint and a start-up company called Skiff said on Monday that they would preview the first Skiff Reader in Las Vegas this week at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Skiff, which was incubated by the publisher Hearst, said it had designed the device to allow fast page-turning. “We think it’s the speediest reader yet,” said Gil Fuchsberg, president of Skiff. “We’ve got some things that we can do that you’ve never been able to do on e-ink screens before.”

http://www.skiff.com/skiff-reader.html

Magazine and Newspaper Pubs Introduce Digital Newsstand

Five major magazine and newspaper publishers on Tuesday announced plans to build an industry-standard platform to present their work on the Web, phones and e-readers in a richer, more flexible and more lucrative form than is possible today.

The consortium of Time Inc., Conde Nast, the Hearst Corporation, Meredith and the News Corporation does not lack for ambition, hoping to design software primarily for devices that do not yet exist – cellphones more advanced than anything now on the market and e-readers far more sophisticated than today’s mostly static, black-and-white devices.   Full story