Monday, April 30, 2012

Microsoft Invests $300M In New Barnes & Noble Venture


Looks like Microsoft and Barnes and Noble are hooking up in a bit way that could pave way for the brick-and-mortar bookseller to stay in the ebooks game.  The obvious aim is to blunt Amazon's Fire, which runs on a specialized Android OS.  The question is what does Microsoft get out of this?

Well, for the $300 million, Microsoft and BN commits to a Nook reader app for Windows 8.  However, that really would have happened anyway, right?  The two also worked out their patent differences.  So, BN will likely have to pay Microsoft for each Nook hardware sold.  Unless, of course, something is worked out so that BN would support Windows more.

I'm sure more details will come out soon.  I'm curious if this means a Windows 8 running on a Nook or if BN is still free to run the Nook on their Android version with their own app store.

And kinda related to this, will Microsoft possibly go after Amazon as well over the Kindle Fire.

Source:  CNET.

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