The tech world has been abuzz about the announced partnership of Microsoft with Barnes & Noble. The Redmond-based software giant is set to invest in a five-year period at least $605 million in a newly-established subsidiary (temporarily called “Newco”), which houses B and N’s Nook e-reader and college textbook businesses.The relationship would be beneficial to both parties. While it would open the Nook maker to international markets, it also signals a start of Microsoft’s venture into a new market.
“We wanted a great technology partner and obviously deep pockets that can help us properly capitalize. Microsoft was the ideal partner in all those areas,” Barnes and Noble CEO William Lynch unabashedly told Fortune about why his company decided to work with Microsoft.
Lynch also revealed about what the future holds for the Nook, which has risen to a value of $1.7 billion since two years ago. One such update is the inclusion of NFC technology to the Nook, which may (or may not) roll out within this year.
“We can work with the publishers so they would ship a copy of each hardcover with an NFC chip embedded with all the editorial reviews they can get on BN.com. And if you had your Nook, you can walk up to any of our pictures, any our aisles, any of our bestseller lists, and just touch the book, and get information on that physical book on your Nook and have some frictionless purchase experience. That’s coming, and we could lead in that area.”
The CEO, however, did not delve in detail on whether will Nook will ditch its open-source software and embrace Windows 8. He does, however, acknowledged Microsoft’s leadership in authoring tools (i.e. Office).
Source: Fortune
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