Barnes and Noble is holding a press event at Union Square in New York City August the 20th. They will be formally unveiling the two new tablets they are working on, in conjunction with Samsung.
In the past, Barnes and Noble always did their own hardware design and outsourced the manufacturing. They also developed their own skinned version of Android and ecosystem with apps, movies and games. This was too much for them to handle and gravitated their customer base into using Google Play for everything but books, magazines and newspapers.
Working with Samsung was a tremendous benefit to Barnes and Noble because they only have to be responsible for the software side of things. They will be using existing Samsung hardware, which should allow them to focus on a great user experience.
I am fairly excited to see what the new braintrust at Barnes and Noble has in store for us. Most of the old executives that oversaw the entire Nook product line have all left the company. With all of the new blood working to make Nook a success, it will be very interesting to see what the final product looks like.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.