Is Microsoft Looking to Buy Into the E-Book Business? | Slog

Last night, Eric Eldon and Ingrid Lunden at TechCrunch reported:

Microsoft is offering to pay $1 billion to buy the digital assets of Nook Media LLC, the digital book and college book joint venture with Barnes & Noble and other investors, according to internal documents we?ve obtained. In this plan, Microsoft would redeem preferred units in Nook Media, which also includes a college book division, leaving it with the digital operation ? e-books, as well as Nook e-readers and tablets.

The documents also reveal that Nook Media plans to discontinue its Android-based tablet business by the end of its 2014 fiscal year as it transitions to a model where Nook content is distributed through apps on ?third-party partner? devices.

For a while now, Microsoft has been the only major tech player without its own e-book storefront. This looks like an attempt to buy into the market with an already-established brand. I'm not convinced that the Nook e-bookstore is worth a billion dollars, but this certainly would be the easiest way for Microsoft to play catch-up with Amazon, Apple, and Google.

Source: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/05/09/is-microsoft-looking-to-buy-into-the-e-book-business

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