Most ebook sellers try to lock you into a particular ecosystem. If you don’t mind buying from the same company every time, this isn’t too bad, but you lose the ability to comparison shop, as well as making it difficult to switch apps. Fortunately, there’s a way around this problem.
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Barnes & Noble and Microsoft have agreed to scale back their digital-reading partnership, which means that the bookseller will no longer develop its Nook e-reading app for Microsoft software.
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Microsoft and Barnes & Noble have just experienced a change in the dynamics of their working relationship, right after allowing the Nook manufacturer to stop any more work on e-reading apps for Windows. This is done in favor of something which is known as the Microsoft Consumer Reader. In a regulatory filing that was published this week, Nook Media touted that they “would be permitted to discontinue distributing the Nook Windows app [and] cease efforts with respect to a Windows phone app.”
Nook App For Windows Halted original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Barnes & Noble has ceased development on its NOOK app for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, and will instead simply provide content for Microsoft’s own “consumer reader” platform, a regulatory … Continue reading
Barnes & Noble’s hardware division hasn’t exactly been churning out tablets left, right and center. The ones that it has released haven’t exactly proven to be hits. Infact, revenues have been plummeting, in the previous quarter alone the company has experienced a 58.2 percent decline in device and accessories sales as compared to the same time last year. Despite all of this, the company doesn’t seem to be giving up on the Nook tablet just yet. It has confirmed that a new Nook is going to be released later this year.
New Nook Tablet To Be Released Later This Year original content from Ubergizmo. 
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The tablet market is an extremely competitive one, although Apple’s iPad has more or less dominated the scene for the longest time already. Well, the folks over at Barnes & Noble are currently working hard to prepare the launch of its first new tablet since the last release which happened a couple of years ago. In the company’s most recent financial report, it was apparent that B&N is currently talking to potential hardware partners when it comes to the development and manufacturing of a new color NOOK device which should hit the markets in early 2015.
Next Generation NOOK Tablet Is In The Pipeline original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Barnes & Noble will launch a new NOOK color tablet later in 2014, the company has confirmed, after losses from the division “narrowed significantly” in the last financial quarter thanks … Continue reading
A report from Business Insider earlier today claimed that Barnes & Noble had eliminated its Nook hardware engineering staff in its entirety. Barnes & Noble has confirmed to TechCrunch that there were “job eliminations across the organization,” but stressed that they have not in fact eliminated their hardware division as first reported.
Nook spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating provided the following statement from the company to explain the current situation and recent organizational changes:
We’ve been very clear about our focus on rationalizing the NOOK business and positioning it for future success and value creation. As we’ve aligned NOOK’s cost structure with business realities, staffing levels in certain areas of our organization have changed, leading to some job eliminations. We’re not going to comment specifically on those eliminations. We believe we have a strong management team in place at NOOK, having recruited significant new talent. The new NOOK management team is focused on managing the business efficiently so that it becomes financially strong while at the same time aggressively moving to drive revenue growth.
The Nook business hasn’t been doing well for a long time, and the unit’s revenue dropped 32.3 percent year-over-year last fiscal quarter. There have been multiple rumors about B&N considering buyers for the Nook business, but so far, it seems to remain committed to the division despite its declining fortunes.
Sony seems to be intent on extricating itself from the e-book market, where few companies have seemed to be able to weaken the Amazon stranglehold. It recently announced it was shutting down its e-book market in the U.S. and Canada, and moving existing users to Kobo. Nook remains in the game for now, but players are dropping like flies, so who knows how much longer that will remain true.
Its no secret that Barnes & Noble’s hardware division hasn’t performed too spectacularly in recent quarters, in fact the future of this very division is at best uncertain. Business Insider has been tipped off by a source that B&N has actually fired all of its Nook hardware engineering staff. According to the source, the entire staff was laid off last Thursday, following the dismissal of Bill Saperstein in January. Saperstein was the Vice President of Hardware.
Barnes & Noble Fired Nook Engineering Staff [Rumor] original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Barnes & Noble has made further cuts to its NOOK engineering division, taking a scythe to the hardware team responsible for its ereader in the aftermath of slumping holiday sales. … Continue reading
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