image Amazon has the Kindle.  Borders features the Sony Reader in its stores.  So why is Barnes & Noble so noticeably absent from the e-reader business?

This question has certainly crossed my mind over the past year or so, but it really stuck with me after reading Jeff Rutherford’s recent post about the Sony Reader.  According to B&N’s Yahoo! Finance pages, as of 2/2/08 the chain had 798 bookstores and rival Borders had 541.  This is consistent with my travel experiences where it seems I’m more likely to run into a B&N than a Borders store (except for those cases where they’re almost right next to each other!).  If the number of stores has any meaning, and I think it does, B&N would be considered "bigger" than Borders.  Other publicly available metrics support this notion as well, btw.

So if e-content’s future really is bright, and I tend to believe it is, why doesn’t the leading domestic brick-and-mortar retailer have a device/platform to offer?  I hope B&N doesn’t feel it’s too late to enter the fray.  I think B&N has lots to offer here and it would be a shame to see them on the sidelines while Amazon runs away with this emerging part of the business.

As I mentioned in a follow-up comment to Jeff’s post, I think B&N ought to explore a private label option with Sony, assuming Sony didn’t sign some sort of ironclad non-compete with Borders.  Sony’s Reader is a solid product but if that’s not an option B&N should look at the iLiad next.  Amazon has set the bar high with the Kindle’s wireless functionality so I firmly believe B&N would have to incorporate wireless service in any product they’d offer; perhaps that’s the hold-up since the Kindle’s approach is fairly unique.

Either way, B&N is giving Amazon a headstart that’s starting to feel uncomfortable, particularly since the Kindle will celebrate its first anniversary in a couple of months.  By the way, why would a Kindle-loving loyalist like me want to see B&N enter the e-reader sweepstakes?  One word: Competition.  It will force Amazon to continuously improve the Kindle.  And if someone else comes up with a better mousetrap, well, I’ve been known to change my consumer loyalties from time to time…

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4 COMMENTS

  1. B&N got burned with e-books around 2000 so they may wait for now.

    Regarding Borders vs B&N, I agree that B&N is the bigger company from many points of view, but the regular – not Express – Borders store are usually bigger on average than the regular B&N ones from my expereince and I’ve been in tens of each. Borders just bet a lot on cd/dvd’s and lost big money so its recent troubles are not due to book sales which are similar to B&N’s

  2. Joe,

    Amazon has a reason for pushing Kindle; B&N (and Sony) don’t, so far as I can see. The Kindle isn’t about reading, it’s about retailing. See my post at http://pubfrontier.com/2008/07/20/e-ink-the-kindle-and-the-iphone/.

    Poor Sony seems to be playing a sad game of me-too; the PRS-505 is a beautiful piece of technology, but I can’t see where they’re going with it. B&N seems smart not to get caught in that trap. Instead, they should do something different, like POD kiosks or a J2ME reading app that runs on lots of different kinds of cell phones.

  3. Given the financial difficulties at Borders, maybe B&N is wiser not to distribute an eBook reader. I think part of the problem at Borders has been big bets on things that haven’t paid off (they seem to carry more games and miniatures than B&N, for example).

    Until things settle on standards, I think B&N is wiser not to adopt an “official” eBook reader or to install a POD station and the like. Focus on the core, and after the economy shakes out then start to expand at the margin.

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