25 Nov 2009 0645H

Re: Barnes & Noble’s Nook

Dear Mr. Frain: slash the price on the Nook. Give the thing away. Why? The real game is to sell books, not to sell Nooks, just like Microsoft and the other game companies. To compare with video games: if you have good product, as Nintendo planned, quite successfully, with the Wii against Microsoft’s XBox 360 and particularly Sony’s Playstation 3 — or for that matter, the Atari VCS versus the more advanced Mattel Intellivision or the Magnavox Odyssey 2, or the Nintendo 8-bit system vs. the Sega Genesis 16-bit system, the technology becomes practically irrelevant. It’s the things you do with that technology, not the technology itself. In fact, historically, anyone who sells on the technology alone winds up losing. Once everyone has one, then you can concentrate on what you all do best which is of course, selling books. These game companies take a hit on the consoles, but make it back up in the games. Similarly, you could look at music. Apple gives away iTunes, but makes it back up on the music. The iTunes is not the thing they profit on. Also, I think, cleverly, Apple made an agreement with Starbucks to deliver a free iTunes experience at any of their locations: you already have your own bricks and mortar space with free wifi. It would be trivial to have people come to an eBooks store when people log in. So drop the price on the Nook — I would even put out a Nook app for mobile to go toe-to-toe with Amazon and others — and make it easy to buy books, everywhere, anywhere. In fact, why not do this: buy a book in hardcopy format and get the softcopy free?

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