Doubts cast on rumor of Apple buying Barnes & Noble

OneMoreThing... · Jul 28, 2011

Doubts cast on rumor of Apple buying Barnes & Noble

Responding to a new rumor that Apple is considering a purchase of bookseller Barnes & Noble, one Wall Street analyst has said he doesn't think such a deal would make much sense for the iPhone maker.

Chris H. · Jul 28, 2011

Hmm...

I don't think it would make much if any sense for Apple to buy out B&N. If anything, the iBookstore has most everything a B&N store has on the shelves (like a sign language book Mom needed).

baggss · Jul 28, 2011

Actually, I've found the iBooks store and B&N e-books to both be severely lacking when compared to the Kindle store. I found myself in a B&N the other day and was looking up e-books on Amazons Kindle store that neither B&N nor iBooks had (although B&N has the books in the store). Amazon got $30 of my money, Apple and B&N got $0.

Chris H. · Jul 28, 2011

baggss said:
Actually, I've found the iBooks store and B&N e-books to both be severely lacking when compared to the Kindle store. I found myself in a B&N the other day and was looking up e-books on Amazons Kindle store that neither B&N nor iBooks had (although B&N has the books in the store). Amazon got $30 of my money, Apple and B&N got $0.

I don't buy from Amazon, if ever. So I really wouldn't know about what's available there.

cwa107 · Jul 28, 2011

Chris H. said:
I don't buy from Amazon, if ever. So I really wouldn't know about what's available there.

I thought we were talking about Barnes& Noble?

Chris H. · Jul 29, 2011

cwa107 said:
I thought we were talking about Barnes& Noble?

See baggss comment about Kindle. ;P

baggss · Jul 29, 2011

Chris H. said:
See baggss comment about Kindle. ;P

Given the context of the comment about iBooks and B&N my comments about Amazon are relevant. iBooks and B&N are both direct competitors to Amazons Kindle store and Apple buying B&N (however unlikely it may be) would likely result in the merging of the two digital book repositories and thus provide a more robust iBooks capability.

In short, we are discussing B&N and Apple but any discussion that includes digital books and the two companies should include the 3rd, stronger, competitor. Hence Amazon.

All that being said buying the brick and mortar stores of B&N would likely be a mistake for Apple plain and simple. It's WAY out of their business lane.

schweb · Jul 29, 2011

Not to mention B&N would give Apple a lot more leverage with publishers with regard to digital book deals since they also would then have a physical book presence. This is exactly why Amazon has the power it does.

However, since iBooks is not at all even close to be important to the core business of iOS, I can't see them wasting their money just for that.