Both Microsoft and Barnes & Noble announced a strategic partnerships in a new subsidiary of Barnes & Noble called Newco. If you own a Nook, Barnes & Noble’s e-reader, or an e-reader in general, then this partnership may interest you. This partnership is looking to accelerate the transition from print media to e-readers, especially for Windows users.
With regards to the new partnership, Microsoft will acquire a 17.6% equity stake in Newco for $300 million. Barnes & Noble will maintain the remaining 82.4% stake in Newco. The name Newco has officially been decided upon by Barnes & Noble.
With the new subsidiary, Barnes & Noble will combine both the digital and College businesses into one company. This will allow Barnes & Noble to possibly provide the NOOK study – software that provides students and educations with a platform for distribution and management of education materials – outside of an individual e-reader.
Microsoft’s investment in Newco will open a whole new market for Barnes & Noble NOOK business. The partnership will possibly bring NOOK software to Windows 8, and perhaps previous version of the Windows operating system. With such a large Windows audience at it’s disposal, Newco can quickly expand it’s software and services to a very large audience.
I’m not sure how this partnership will affect other e-readers, such as the Amazon Kindle, and e-reader digital content. It will be interesting to see how NOOK will be integrated with Windows 8, and how well it will be used.
Internet Explorer is a popular Web browser because of the integration with the Windows operating systems, even though there are better alternatives available. I wonder if Barnes & Noble are hoping for the same type of result – just with a better product.