Barnes and Noble may not be considered a tech company by most people, but the company"s CEO William J. Lynch Jr. says that"s exactly what the book seller is now. That"s according to a new and lengthy article at the New York Times web site about Barnes and Noble which focuses on how the company is trying to make the transition from selling books from its brick and mortar stores to its its Nook eReaders.
While Barnes and Noble is by far the biggest bookseller in the US as far as its retail stores, it is competing with Amazon"s Kindle for the eReader business. The Nook family of eReaders and tablets has managed to take some of the Kindle"s market share away. The article says that the Nook family now has about 27 percent of the eReader market, while Amazon still has at least 60 percent.
Barnes and Noble launched the $249 Nook Tablet in late 2011. But the company isn"t done yet. The article confirms there"s a new eReader device coming in the very near future. It states:
At its labs in Silicon Valley last week, engineers were putting final touches on their fifth e-reading device, a product that executives said would be released sometime this spring.
No details about the new device were announced. It"s possible that it could be an update for the cheap $99 Nook Simple Touch eReader or it could be a 10 inch version of the Nook Tablet which currently has a seven inch screen.