B&N mulls spinning off Nook biz

US bookseller Barnes & Noble is considering spinning off its Nook e-reader business into a separate entity as it forecast a drop in full-year earnings. Although the retailer claims record holiday sales of its pocket-sized gadget, up 70 per cent from last year in the nine-week period up to December 31, B&N is still citing its …

[Will Godfrey]

Hmmm.

A possible move to the UK eh? I don't suppose that has anything to do with US patent silliness etc.

[PushF12]

Cramp that executive bonus

Any product that doesn't make a profit next quarter is a failure. Imagine the disruption of executive bonuses that would happen if a new product took a whole year to get traction.

Maybe B&N is having a Blockbuster moment: Technology is hard and competing against Amazon is scary.

[Robert Halloran]

Expansion needed

The dead-tree publishing business is rapidly imploding. The local B&N here has remodeled to give the Nook section a MUCH larger piece of the floorspace. I think they need this as the last chance to viably compete with Amazon. Being able to get hardcopy when I want it *OR* drop it into the tablet on-premise makes for a much better experience than waiting for the Amazon box to get dropped at the door.

For my part, it's very nice to have hundreds of books stashed away in something about the size/weight of a trade paperback. And the fact that B&N is one of the few Android vendors to push back on the Vole's demand for patent Danegeld makes it all the more desirable in my view.

[Identity]

Stupid idea

Spinning off a profit-making segment, leaving the struggling one(s) behind is a recipe for bankruptcy.

You heard it here first.

[Tom 13]

Agreed. If B&N spins off the Nook you can look

for them to join Borders in Chapter 7 real soon. More's the pity because I'm more of a dead trees book buyer than a Nook buyer. But that doesn't mean I don't recognize the changing market and more importantly, changing profit margins.