Microsoft forms a strategic partnership with Barnes&Noble

[simonnyc]

Wow....BKS up 80% in the pre-market. This could be huge for microsoft. This newly formed subsidiary between the 2 companies includes the Nook digital and college businesses.

I wonder if Microsoft figured out a way to get windows 8 onto the nook tablet. This could be huge for microsoft if they could push win8 (as a software update) to all nook tablets when it rolls out this fall.

 

[HeyCori]

I just read this on Neowin. Could potentially be huge for B&N. They really need something to ignite the Nook because it's getting killed by the Fire. I hope they announce more about their long term strategy.

Also, getting a Microsoft approved Nook Tablet side-loaded with Windows 8 would be awesome.

 

[danwc]

Haven't read it yet, but does that mean we'll finally get a nook app for WP? Been waiting a long time for that one.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

[Mitlov]

A Nook app for Windows Phone is kind of a given with this announcement, even though they haven't said anything about it yet. Good news--the Kindle app for Windows phone is really buggy for me (doesn't always remember what page I left off on, sometimes skips lines of text when turning pages).

I'm excited to see a Nook Tablet 2.0 running either Windows 8 or Windows Phone (most likely the latter due to cost). I'd dump my Kindle Fire with its poorly-skinned Android 2.3 Gingerbread in a heartbeat for that.

 

[lucazzo]

Two good news (if you can even call it news)

1) Turns out Microsoft was suing B&N over Nook-related patents. The matter has been settled with the advent of...
2) Partnership between Microsoft and B&N to take on Kindle. The new Nook with GlowLight has just hit the market. I checked it yesterday and it's absolutely amazing, and will likely take a huge chunk of future customers who are interested in a simple e-reader with no extra apps/features.

Good news--the Kindle app for Windows phone is really buggy for me (doesn't always remember what page I left off on, sometimes skips lines of text when turning pages).

Same here. Part of the problem is that the only way for Kindle to remember what page you're on is to sync it with the cloud (whispersync). If you're reading and hit the home button, it won't sync. If you're reading and hit the back button (returning to library), it will sync. It infuriates me. Not having a text search function is baffling.

AFAIK, all Nook apps out there simply take note of your last page and you can manually sync it later if you care to read on multiple devices. My old phone ran both Kindle and Nook, and the B&N app was superior.

 

[Narr]

It looks as though both B&N and MS are looking to the near future, a Windows 8 tablet (speculation that it could run either WP8 or Windows 8) that has support for books but also allows users to notate, browse the web and more. I see people with ebook readers and they seem to be old already, similar to MP3 players or GPS; great products but people will want their devices to be multi-functional soon enough.