Mar

Barnes and Noble’s Nook = Microsoft’ PC ?

The e-reader business is bustling with activity with new announcement coming in almost every week. Barnes and Noble is out with the Nook, an e-reader that they hope will kill the market dominance of Amazon’s Kindle. Kindle, on its part has expanded its territory by going international. However, software giant Microsoft refuses to be lured in in the war of e-readers by announcing that they don’t have any immediate plans of launching an e-reader of their own. Check out this and many more in the e-readers market at our Good e-reader forum.

Well, Kindle is planning on an expansion of business. Earlier this week, Amazon announced they would not reduce the price of Kindle 2 down to $259. They will be launching a new international version with a built in AT&T SIM card. The new international version priced a little higher at $279 will be available from the month of October. The Kindle DX will also have an international version and readers across the globe will have access to its e-books.

As more and more e-readers make their way into the burgeoning e-reader market, Sony continues to give competition to Amazon’s Kindle. Well, further competition is said to coming in as Barnes and Nobles has launched its own e-reader, the Nook.

The new e-reader by Barnes and Nobles is based on Google’s Android OS. It has a 6-inch touch screen with E-ink digital display and has a virtual display as well. Barnes and Noble also intends to match the Kindle’s e-book store with an e-book store of its own while the Nook itself is priced competitively with respect to the Kindle.

Also interesting to note that Barnes & Noble has partnered with Plastic Logic and will be putting up a color e-reader sometime next spring while e-books can be sourced from Barnes and Noble. Well, e-readers and notebooks will be the most common gadget gifts for people in this economy and thus companies are in quite a rush to get innovative with e-readers this year.

However, Microsoft has refrained from coming out with an e-reading device. According to Steve Ballmer.” We already have a device for reading and it’s the most popular device in the world – Computer”. Many would disagree with Microsoft’s reasoning as PC takes up considerably more energy than an e-reader when reading newspaper, magazines and so on. Netbooks too are more bulky and heavier than an e-reader. One can easily take out an e-reader to spend some time reading while traveling.

Respecting Microsoft’s opinion, its better they are not willing to enter the market as there are already existing e-readers in the market and a lot more new ones are entering. Well, lets not encourage too much rush into the e-reading device market though it’s not smart to say that a computer is equal to an e-reader.

Keep watching this space for more e-reader news.

Sovan Mandal (2403 Posts)

Sovan Mandal is the senior tablet and tech corespondent for goodereader.com. He brings a international approach to news that is not just applicable to the North American market, but also Asia, India, Europe and others. Sovy brings his own writing flavor to the website and is interested in Science Fiction, Technology and Writing. Any questions, send an email